And like that, thousands of people are felons
I interrupt a blogging break for this breaking news.
It appears that the Department of Justice is about to ban bump stocks. I say about to because the Final Action is slated for the imaginary date of 12/00/2018. The new rule:
This rule is intended to clarify that the statutory definition of machinegun includes certain devices (i.e., bump-stock-type devices) that, when affixed to a firearm, allow that firearm to fire automatically with a single function of the trigger, such that they are subject to regulation under the National Firearms Act (NFA) and the Gun Control Act (GCA). The rule will amend 27 CFR 447.11, 478.11, and 479.11 to clarify that bump-stock-type devices are machineguns as defined by the NFA and GCA because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger. Specifically, these devices convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun by functioning as a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that harnesses the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm in a manner that allows the trigger to reset and continue firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.
This is nonsense because the assertion that allow that firearm to fire automatically with a single function of the trigger is demonstrably false. This should require a law passed by congress, which this rule unironically acknowledges. And then there’s the analysis of the rule’s economic impact being significant:
The rule will be “economically significant,” that is, the rule will have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million, or adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, the environment, public health or safety or State, local or tribal governments or communities. ATF estimates the total cost of this rule at $320.9 million over 10 years. The total 7% discount cost is estimated at $234.1 million, and the discounted costs would be $39.6 million and $39.2 million annualized at 3% and 7% respectively. The estimate includes costs to the public for loss of property ($102,470,977); costs of forgone future production and sales ($213,031,753); and costs for disposal ($5,448,330). Unquantified costs include lost employment, notification to bump-stock-type device owners of the need to destroy the bump-stock-type devices, and loss of future usage by the owners of bump-stock-type devices. ATF did not calculate any cost savings for this final rule. It is anticipated that the rule will cost $129,222,483 million in the first year (the year with the highest costs). This cost includes the first-year cost to destroy or modify all existing bump-stock-type devices, including unsellable inventory and opportunity cost of time.
They are willing to destroy a lot of economic value and make a lot of people criminals with an arbitrary and unlawful ruling. So, all you folks who bought bump stocks, what are you going to do when this thing passes?
November 15th, 2018 at 1:18 pm
Sounds like there’s going to be a rash of new boating accidents.
1 trigger pull = 1 round fired. Now that’s considered a full auto.
Guaranteed we haven’t seen the last gasp of this bullshit idea.
November 15th, 2018 at 2:26 pm
“…notification to bump-stock-type device owners of the need to destroy the bump-stock-type devices…”
Do they mean all these un-numbered un-counted un-known removable accessory stocks? I’m sure just a simple “please” would get the job done. Right.
Here’s the money quote:
“They are willing to…make a lot of people criminals.”
Not just willing to but intend to. Which in turn makes all of your actual guns illegal for you to possess, not to mention providing a pretext for warrants, searches, seizures and murders of pet dogs.
DOJ just agreed to free up a lot of jail/prison space by letting out all the dopers. Now there’ll be room for all you federal felony scofflaws. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence right?
November 15th, 2018 at 3:24 pm
I wonder when this will be challenged?
November 15th, 2018 at 3:47 pm
Eh, I’m already a felon for not turning in all my magazines larger than 10 rounds in New Jersey.
I think the total that have been turned in so far is zero.
November 15th, 2018 at 3:55 pm
It’ll be challenged within a day of a final rule being issued. And the lawyers will have a field day with it.
On the other hand, I could easily see it being leveraged into an NFA re-registration period under the amnesty authority.
November 15th, 2018 at 4:01 pm
@Mike M.
Unfortunately, the law doesn’t allow an amnesty for machine guns. They can do one for anything else but not that. There is no way whatsoever for an ordinary American to legally own a machine gun that wasn’t registered before 5/19/86. Without an act of Congress to change the law.
November 15th, 2018 at 4:54 pm
My dog ate mine. Gave him the shits for weeks.
November 15th, 2018 at 5:41 pm
@Michael Quinn:
It’s a question that is rather confused. NFA’34 allows an amnesty. There’s a question as to whether or not Section 922 (o) overrides that. My money says this will be tied up in the courts for years.
November 15th, 2018 at 5:54 pm
“My money says this will be tied up in the courts for years.”
As will an unknown number of instant felons.
November 15th, 2018 at 8:34 pm
Ahem.
https://www.saysuncle.com/2018/10/04/quote-of-the-day-394/#comments
I’ll take those addressses now, gentlemen.
November 15th, 2018 at 9:25 pm
If and when the BATFE wins in court on this,expect to see a similar rule against arm braces.
November 15th, 2018 at 9:58 pm
The ability of ALL federal agencies to create and enforce as law ANY regulations without first having those regulations approved and passed as actual laws by Congress was, is, and always shall be bullshit. Thanks Teddy Roosevelt!
November 16th, 2018 at 12:48 am
I’ll add that this looks awfully like ATF is putting a price floor on compensation claims.
Make no mistake, this whole business is one ATF does NOT want handled with rulemaking. Precisely because it will run straight into the Constitutional prohibitions against ex post facto laws, 2A issues, and 4A issues.
November 16th, 2018 at 1:20 am
“…when 2017R-22 goes from Proposed to Enacted”.
Still premature bro.
November 16th, 2018 at 9:41 am
They do know, I guess.. maybe, that one can stick their off hand finger into the trigger guard and ‘fan’ the trigger, right? And with a bi-pod one can then go prone and make a rather decent group.
November 16th, 2018 at 10:29 am
What about trigger fingers?
November 16th, 2018 at 11:03 am
“these devices convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun by functioning as a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that harnesses the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm in a manner that allows the trigger to reset and continue firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.”
By that definition if I remove my finger the rifle should continue to fire. But it stops.
Because my finger is CONTINUOUSLY manipulating the trigger when the rifle is pushed forward again after each recoil. By the ATF’s interpretation, EVERY semi-automatic rifle is now a machine gun.
November 16th, 2018 at 12:12 pm
JTC are you still pretending this isn’t going to happen? That somehow it’s all just for show?
November 16th, 2018 at 12:42 pm
Two very important points to remember:
1. This will morph into the claim that semi-automatic firearms are now automatic firearms by the magic bureaucratic BS.
2. The Liberty grabbers have already started to push to regulate semi-automatic firearms as automatic firearms.
If this passes through the feral government’s bureaucratic bowels we will soon see both of these points pushed to the hilt….
November 16th, 2018 at 4:28 pm
Precisely because it will run straight into the Constitutional prohibitions against ex post facto laws, 2A issues, and 4A issues.
No?
Ex Post Facto doesn’t apply for reasons I’m not going into again in detail (“banning stuff is not an ex post facto law”, basically – sending you to prison for owning it WHILE it was still legal would be).
2A? Given that the NFA hasn’t been struck down, nor the Hughes Amendment, what makes you think this is gonna be the 2A straw that breaks that camel?
4A? Eh, only in the sense that they can’t prosecute you for failing to register it – but they can prosecute you for possessing it without it being registered (see Haynes vs. US, 1968).
None of those arguments are gonna work, though I wish we lived in a world where the 2A one would.
November 16th, 2018 at 5:50 pm
Sigivald
How can one register something that does not have a serial number even if they allowed one to do so under an amnesty?
No, it will turn them in(NOT!)or destroy them or they will be CONFISCATED without compensation if they can find them.
I just don’t think the DoJ or ATF can arbitrarily redefine a machine gun. It should require Congress to pas a Law banning them.
November 16th, 2018 at 5:56 pm
Bump Fire a Pistol. So now these will be Machine Pistols?
November 16th, 2018 at 7:48 pm
https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1063527635114852352
“And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But theyre legit. Im sure if we talked we could find common ground to protect our families and communities.”
Dem Congressman says .gov will nuke gun owners which don’t comply with confiscation.
November 16th, 2018 at 8:04 pm
I asked my friendly BATFE agent about how to go about registering my supply of “bump stocks” during my last inspection, a few months ago. She laughed, and said that the DOJ would never pass it. I laughed, and said “…and what if they do?” While I can make machine guns here in my shop quite legally until I get bored, according to the BATFE’s published rules any standard bump stock cannot be…serialized…because the serial number must be on permanently affixed metal. I can’t just make a post-86 dealer sample “bump stock” according to the current rules because there is no way to serialize them, yet if this silly ruling is put into effect then…a damn machine gun manufacturer cannot legally turn what they have “decided” is a machine gun into a…legal machine gun. Yeah, the lawyers are going to have a field day with this jackhole concept, and my prediction that some black robed tyrant will do the same thing that the semi-retarded black robed tyrant did in the SIG “silencer/compensator” case (agree that the BATFE/DOJ is flat fucking insane and makes things up as they wish with no regard for any rules, even their own) and say that even though ruling against the government insanity is the correct and legal thing to do…said black robed tyrant just can’t do that because he is a pansy and lickspittle of the first order, not a sitting American judge.
November 16th, 2018 at 9:08 pm
Sooooo, Rubber Bands are about to get expensive.
Will Target and Office Supply be targetted, perhaps raided and Waco’D?
Ha!!
I get the seriousness of this “Precedent.”
I have ample rubber bands, if need be.
What really strikes me…..
They are actually willing to look this STUPID and Dictatorial.
God help them when I sit on “any” Jury for any crime.
I will forever remember this.
The Rule of Law is NOW, quite obvious to me, and I shall Judge the accused, Accordingly.
My model T will(could) be converted into a rocket, which will(could) carry my homebrew sattelite, which will(could) take high resolution video, of which i will(could) stream Live on the internet, of Area 51,52, Battle Spaces and other places that the American Kremlin doesn’t want us to see upto date photo’s of.
Yup, stupid huh, there as stupid as my statement.
November 16th, 2018 at 10:14 pm
@wizardpc…no, just that it hasn’t.
When it does, the challenges mentioned will steer it (and its intended and unintended ancillary consequences which are much more critical than the junk stocks themselves) into the courts for better or worse, and if one looks into the number of federal bench seats that have been and are being filled under potus DT, it engenders hope for the better and a bit of wonder about intents and methods and arts of deals; is the plan to let the courts decide…after the courts have been properly staffed? Could be.
I’m as big a skeptic as anybody and two years ago thought Trump just wanted to win and bail but I don’t think that anymore. His list of real-deal accomplishments and kept promises is staggering even if it often is a circuitous and puzzling route to get them. That may be, and appears to be, his genius. As to his intent on this issue and every single other one that I have watched with suspicion and then amazement, I will wait and see what actually transpires over the next two years when in 2020 I believe we will see some major planks and promises related to some real 2A and other critical Constitutional protections going forward.
It might or might not be a grand plan…but as of right now I’m going with results.
November 17th, 2018 at 11:33 am
Speaking of which:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/california-dem-says-us-would-win-short-war-against-gun-rights-advocates-the-government-has-nukes/ar-BBPNYz9?li=BBnb7Kz
Most hilarious is that he thinks he is the gov…he might want to have another look at that 2016 red/blue county by county map…even right there in Kalifornistan.
November 17th, 2018 at 2:17 pm
Love how the dictatorial dems think that your average soldier or cop will follow their orders to murder people who disagree with them. When history shows that local sheriffs and policemen are actively saying they would refuse to enforce illegal gun laws.
November 18th, 2018 at 4:11 am
@ Ravenwood – – Until something like the weather changes for the worse.
Remember hurricane Katrina? JBTs couldn’t wait to enforce illegal gun laws that were just made up on the fly. Local sheriffs and policemen will do what they are told in order to protect their precious paychecks and pensions. Fuck everybody else.
SCOTUS agreed with the gun owners but that was years later…the damage was already done.
November 18th, 2018 at 9:42 am
@Ravenwood, “dictatorial dems” say that state and local LE should not enforce federal immigration laws, not even troops on the border to “repel invasions”, but they would want state and local to enforce fedgov gun laws against citizens to the point of killing them. Go figure?