Expensive Pot Scrubbers
First, ATF classifies a shoestring as a machine gun. Now, ATF has classified Chore Boy copper cleaning pads, along with fiberglass insulation as sound suppressors. This means my house is full of silencers! And so is yours!
Firearms regulations are a joke.
November 15th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Anything from BATFEces is a sick joke–except for the atrocities of Waco, Ruby Ridge, Gunwalker, and others. Those are just sick.
November 15th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Maybe we could persuade Boehner to start Defunding this idiots? What’s the Phone Number to the White House Golf Course so I can complain to the House Speaker?
November 15th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
I’m sure oil filters are next.
http://youtu.be/C4ADdUgkW6A
November 15th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
If by joke you mean they will lock you in jail for having pot scrubbers in your home, then yes.
November 15th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
To quote a famous doctor: “This must be what going mad feels like.”
For clean cookware and freedom; we must fight!
November 15th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Our firearms laws are, indeed, a joke.
But given the stupid laws we have, this ATF ruling seems correct (and is rather more limited than people want me to think).
Things that are parts of a suppressor integral to its sound-suppressing function, are unsurprisingly suppressor parts, according to the ATF and the law (see below).
What the letter actually says is that if a suppressor uses that stuff as packing, that stuff in the suppressor is part of the suppressor for regulator purposes. Which while not a great law, because they’re a wear item, it’s facially not exactly wrong, is it?. The stuff is necessary to the sound-suppressing function, after all.
When you stuff the pads in a tube designed to make a gun quieter, and it makes a gun quieter, it’s being a suppressor at that time – this does not seem facially unreasonable in itself, as a definitional issue.
18 USC 921(a)(24) says “The terms “firearm silencer” and “firearm muffler” mean any
device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication.”
The letter the guy sent to the ATF said that the scrub pads in question were, in context, “intended for use …” in a suppressor. Which is also correct, since he stated that was their purpose in the letter.
In the case of anyone who doesn’t have such a suppressor, they won’t be. Note that the logic for “you can’t stockpile them either” is based on “because they’re an integral part they’re manufacturing if you replace them”.
Which while stupid, is again, not something the ATF made up to be mean, it’s just the stupid law.
The problem in this case is not that the ATF is just making up stupid crap or that “a shoestring is a machinegun” (or “pot scrubbers are suppressors” in and of themselves, just because they could be) – the problem is that the law is stupid.
For once, the ATF appears to simply be applying the stupid law, plainly.
BATFE has done lots of things worthy of criticism – in this case, however, the ass is the law, not the enforcement agency.
(Again, contra NAME REDACTED, you can’t, on the basis of that letter, get locked in jail for having pot scrubbers – unless you own one of that specific sort of suppressor. Because by the law, “intended” is part of the definition of suppressor parts.)
November 15th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
And the people haven’t burned down this agency why?
November 15th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Because the people with a proclivity to burn down federal buildings probably are unencumbered by rulings like this.
IOW, this only affects the otherwise law-abiding.
November 15th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Why couldn’t Perry say that the BATFE would be the 3rd department to dissolve when he had his brain fart?
November 15th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
If by some cosmic miracle Perry or any other Stupid Party candidate manages to get elected POTUS, I feel quite safe in predicting that the BATFE will continue on unscathed. Nothing short of a planet-killing asteroid smearing the Earth like a bug on a windshield is enough to end any entrenched government agency.
C’mon asteroid!
November 15th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Xman: As it should be, since firearms laws can’t be removed by executive fiat, and laws need an enforcer … and the problems of bad enforcement won’t die with the ATF.
Now, if the Stupid Party controlled Congress and gave a damn about the GCA and NFA, BATFE might get dismantled.
But they don’t care about the GCA and NFA, for the obvious reason that even most gun owners don’t really care; and thus it doesn’t get them support, to care.
Internet gun enthusiasts are not a big power center, and the 500 pound gorilla of the NRA still doesn’t care about suppressors and SBRs.
(And quite rightly, since they’re still far less important than securing the right to keep and bear arms, which is a lot less secure than it should be.
After that‘s wrapped up, they can worry about changing public perception enough to make a “suppressors are safety equipment, not magical assassination tools” stance work.
And sometime before the death of the Earth by an expanding Sun, we might see full-auto taken off the NFA. Or maybe not.)
November 15th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
“since firearms laws can’t be removed by executive fiat”
Actually they can. Its known as a blanket pardon. Jefferson was famous for this. The exec can unilaterally remove any federal criminal law he wishes using this power.
November 15th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
ATLien: You are a person.
Why haven’t *you* burned down the ATF? Do you expect other people to do what you won’t, or is there another reason you haven’t?
November 16th, 2011 at 2:55 am
The Government will just go another 50 million into debt to build a brand new facility.
November 16th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
On the other hand a few years ago they reversed their ruling on supressor wipes. You are now allowed to replace the wipes yourself without returning the supressor to manufacturer.
November 16th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
When is water going to be classified as a suppressor part?
Drop a bit in a wet rated can, and it gets quieter after all.