The ATF is correct
Bump stocks do not convert semiautomatics into machine guns.
The fallout and eventual attempt to legislate these away (which seems to be ATF’s goal, as opposed to NRA who thinks ATF should reevaluate their ruling) will be interesting. If legislated away, what happens to those already in possession? I mean, you cannot add new machine guns to the registry. And you can’t have an ex post facto law banning these things, I would think. I’m not a lawyer. But I recall when ATF changed its mind on the Akins Accelerator. People got to keep the stocks but had to turn in the springs.
October 17th, 2017 at 7:45 pm
Strangely enough, the Massachusetts anti-bumpstock bill I saw earlier is narrowly written and seems to define the device pretty well. Quite unlike the Feinstein bill which aims to outlaw just about everything, including rubber bands.
October 17th, 2017 at 8:35 pm
ATF is right. As defined by law, a bump fire stock is not a machine gun.
By most common definitions it’s sure acting like one.
A genuine, dyed in the wool, loophole in the law to get a machine gun without breaking the law to get it!
We’re so accustomed to being disparaged over loopholes which aren’t really that we’ve trouble for seeing this for what it is.
It will take new law or ATF being wrong (again) to ban the things.
Being wrong doesn’t stop them from ignoring black-letter law on armor piercing ammo, so why would we expect them to follow it for bump stocks if there’s enough executive pressure to do so?
October 17th, 2017 at 8:36 pm
It is possible to ban thing that people currently posses, however, anything legally purchased that is then banned by the government is almost certainly covered by the takings clause and the owners would have to be compensated. Setting that up would be a logistical nightmare and litigation about the value of the items would add to it.
October 18th, 2017 at 2:15 am
McThag
What “common definition” are you talking about? You looked up “bumpstock” in the common dictionary I suppose?
And what is a loophole? Because in the law, they don’t exist. The courts have well settled on the plain language of the statute is to be applied. A loophole would have to be a well thought out and intentionally written part of the code to make the very code void. This would be a bigger conspiracy than the moon landing, the grassy knoll, and 9/11.
Furthermore, you’re very sentence about the supposed loophole states it was written to keep machine guns from being registered.so why did it take 80 years for Bumpfire stocks to be made?
The language we use has to be very specific during this time. The goal it to ban semi automatic weapons. Or we will be registering fingers and rubber bands.
October 18th, 2017 at 11:29 am
McThag: by your ‘definition’, ANY AR15 in Jerry Miculek’s hands is a machinegun. So does Jerry need a Form 4 to go out for breakfast?
October 18th, 2017 at 2:10 pm
“It is possible to ban thing that people currently posses, however, anything legally purchased that is then banned by the government is almost certainly covered by the takings clause and the owners would have to be compensated.” –Hist_ed
“Possible”, but UNLAWFUL under the explicit Constitutional ban of an “ex post facto law”. That would open the door for the criminal politicians to impose their “Australia-style” mandatory buy back in which legally possessed (semi-auto) guns were CONFISCATED. Non-compilers were who didn’t participate were then criminalized. No thanks. Government must be forced to obey the law!
October 18th, 2017 at 2:40 pm
And you can’t have an ex post facto law banning these things, I would think
As I always say, that is not what an ex post facto law is or means.
Ex Post Facto is just Latin for “after the fact”, remember.
I don’t know why gun people [I never see this anywhere else, but probably because other contexts don’t see blanket bans proposed?] keep thinking that an EPF law is “making a thing illegal that wasn’t before”.
An EPF law is, roughly, “this thing that was legal then makes you a criminal now for doing it then, while it was still legal“; it’s making a thing that was legal at the time a crime punishable now.
“Making a thing that was legal then a thing that would be punishable now if you did it now, like by still having a banned thing” is simply … a ban; it criminalizes a thing in the present or future tense.
The takings clause won’t apply either, any more than it did to liquor makers who couldn’t sell their stocks after Prohibition – “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” does not apply to such bans, since the stocks are not being taken for public use.