If memory serves, the Obama administration (the one far right was screaming for 8 years was going to take away all the guns) specifically looked at bump stocks and said they were legal.
Trump freaked out at the Las Vegas shooting and pushed the ban ASAP.
"Take away their guns and worry about the due process later”
Quoting that anti-constitution anti-gun president got me banned from a libertarian subreddit back in the day. I made it very clear I was against his position on blatantly violating the Fourth Amendment. I guess they were just extremely triggered by the quote?
Bumpstocks are oldshit in comparison to "super safeties." They push the trigger forward after you shoot. So you just squeeze, and you get quick individual trigger pulls at close to an automatic rate. It's also easier to aim. Also, it's a tiny piece you can 3d print. Also, I'm NOT linking it.
The ban on bump stocks was implemented using the Firearms' Owners Protection Act of 1986. Which was signed into law by Reagan (funny how a failed assassination will change things).
The text at issue is
SEC. 109. AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT.
(a) Section 58450)) of the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. 5845(b))
is amended by striking out "any combination of parts designed and
intended for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun," and
inserting in lieu thereof "any part designed and intended solely
and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for
use in converting a weapon into a machinegun,"
IMO the majority in this decision is choosing to blatantly ignore the text of the act which was clearly chosen to future-proof for any advancement which would result in an effortless high rate of fire such as bump stock and super safety. Instead they are insisting that Congress must amend the law to include specific parts which of course is a losing battle as there will always be a new part that achieves an effortless high rate of fire.
Now where one could argue that this ruling is correct is the accepted definition of a machinegun requires a single trigger action.
Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger
Personally I think the laws should be amended to define weapons and munitions by their result (high or continuous rate of fire) instead of their form or function. As it stands, someone could create a weapon that simply fires continuously but does not resemble a gun in any other way. Would such a weapon be a machinegun if it doesn't even have a trigger?
I think the dissenting opinion was more inline with the intent of FOPA.
They don't need to ban specific parts, and in fact they shouldn't. They could ban anything designed to accelerate rate of fire.
I don't think anyone is going to build a triggerless pseudo-machine gun. You could build one where, when you close the action, it fires until it's out of ammo, but that's not very controllable. See also: slamfire.
They don't need to ban specific parts, and in fact they shouldn't. They could ban anything designed to accelerate rate of fire.
That's exactly what they should do. But SCOTUS seems to think that the bump stock cannot be banned because there is no law about bump stocks specifically.
The entire logic of the Court's opinion rests on the fact that bump stocks still use a seperate trigger action per shot. They just cause the trigger to automatically trigger against a stationary finger instead of the shooter needing to manually actuate their trigger finger.
Is this an obtusely litteral reading of a law that was clearly intended to be more broadly interpreted? Probably. But it is a reading with a majority support on the court, so we are stuck with it until congress amends the law.
Isn't it that the trigger is squeezed once and the recoil causes the crock to bounce back which results in another trigger action? Even though there is only one action by the shooter, it would seem to be multiple trigger actions.
I contend that what a bump stock does is make the trigger the entire front half of the gun and your finger is merely a passive mechanical part. Like, you could replace your finger with a bent fork glued onto the bump stock and it would still function as intended. Your finger becomes the auto-sear, the entire front half of the rifle is the trigger.
I contend that what a bump stock does is make the trigger the entire front half of the gun and your finger is merely a passive mechanical part. Like, you could replace your finger with a bent fork glued onto the bump stock and it would still function as intended. Your finger becomes the auto-sear, the entire front half of the rifle is the trigger.
I got a bunch of leaves and my neighbor too. He's very rich. Can we please just burn all the leaves? The smoke will go east and there's nothing there, just a hospital and a premature baby nursery. I assume this is okay by the supreme court. Oh and we want to do it naked and we want to pop our guns into the fire. You know, for 4th of July stuff.
The problem is the laws regulating automatics are absolutely idiotic, and automatic weapons are 100% legal to own, just kind of expensive. Not like "need to be a multi-millionaire" expensive, but "can afford to pay cash for a late-model used car".
Like most of our half-assed regulations, it doesn't actually do anything other than making it pay to play. We don't actually want to do anything that might prevent cops and their buddies from having a monopoly on force, so basically every gun law is moot for them anyway, even if they're buying them as private citizens.
That's one of the biggest concerns I have with the way we regulate firearms (among many other things) in the US, because they clearly aren't made with a mindset of "X thing is bad for society as a whole, we need to do something about it", it's "X thing is totally fine if you're in our special club, but the plebs are not allowed to have it.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Unless prohibited by law, you have the power to do anything you like. As it probably says in the article, this needs to be law, not ATF opinion.
That wasn’t remotely the basis of the ruling. It was essentially ruled that they don’t meet the definition of a machine gun in the law, which limits what the ATF can do. It was mentioned that congress can amend the law and ban them. They just haven’t.
"One of the laws allows gun owners to carry weapons in national parks; that law took effect in February 2012 and replaced President Ronald Reagan's policy that required guns to be locked in glove compartments of trunks of cars that enter national parks.
Another gun law signed by Obama allows Amtrak passengers to carry guns in checked baggage, a move that reversed a measure put in place after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
the right to bear arms exists to protect people from tyrants
the whole premise of this right is that we can't trust the government to keep our liberty safe because they could become the tyrants. if one day some religious idiot comes into power who doesn't want women learning math, you may end up glad that conservatives have made it easier for women to fight for their liberty by refusing to allow these rights to be eroded
Religious tyrants have gotten into power, they are forcing women into service as incubators. Nobody sane has taken up arms against the government. It is the "conservatives" who are fighting at the ballot box to erode our liberties and human rights.
"Conservatives" want to elect an openly racist demagogue who already committed a putsch and is asking SCOTUS to hand him a Long Knife.
LOL "conservatives" refusing to allow rights to be eroded. Yeah buddy, the women are going to force their way into math class holding the teacher at gunpoint.
I'll remind my daughter next time she calls me having a panic attack during an active shooter lockdown that at least she still has the right to love who she wantsmake her own reproductive healthcare choicesget IVF if she can't have kidsbe open and honest about who she is
teach your daughter to use weapons, allow weapons in schools, and let her destroy anyone who attacks her.
i am sorry religious idiots are taking away her rights. these idiots are luring in many supporters because they support the second amendment. liberals need to start being pro-gun and get these religious idiots out of power
the right to bear arms exists to protect people from tyrants
This is a complete fiction, a true American mythology that exists in the modern day.
The right to bear arms was more about homestead defense against indigenous natives and foreign invading armies than it was for any kind of poison pill for Americans to topple their own government if they woke up one day and decided they don't like who's in charge anymore. The very notion that the founders would set up a new system of governance but be okay with the idea of baking in gun ownership rights to ensure that the people will always be able to conduct a violent insurrection as the vehicle for regime change is absurd.
Everybody likes to ignore the "well-regulated militia" part of that amendment, conveniently ignoring that a well regulated militia would answer to the state or the federal government, the very force of tyranny that they claim they need the guns to defend themselves against.
Conservatives would be the first to call anyone participating in the uprising unamerican and would be more likely to form reactionary militias supportive of the fascist government than to overthrow anything
Hadis Najafi was a feminist. A world hero. I hope one day in a brave new feminist world, she has a holiday. I wish I had met her. I'd give anything to have met her. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if heaven were real I would get to meet her. How can one person be so courageous?
She fought without being armed because she was a hero and she couldn't not fight. She had enough and said fuck it, I know I'm going to die and don't care. Although she said "I like to think that when I think about this a few years later I'll be pleased I joined the protest" I believe a part of her new she could die, I think this was something she said to comfort herself. Heroes fight even when the odds aren't great. I wish I could become a good and courageous person like her.
You think it's bad now?
Don't be myopic. This is a woman who would have been a hero with our without weapons, but she could have done more if she had the right to bare arms.
Yes, it matters and the NRA matters and feminism matters and the solution is making sure women have more and larger guns and better tactical training.
I agree with the first part. It was supposed to be a check and balance to government power and oppression. It gives people the power to fight back against injustice.
However, in the time of intercontinental missiles, planes, tanks, and remote operated drones, are a bunch of peasants with guns actually going to do anything if the government turned on its people? Does the "right to bear arms" not extend to other, non-gun weapons?
the right to bear arms exists to protect people from tyrants
Don't you have that backwards? Gun ownership is a luxury enjoyed by an enfranchised society enjoyed exclusively by people who don't feel threatened?
Because I remember a whole era of us domestic policy that revolved around targeting POC and other marginalized groups with gun regulation, while letting white nationalist groups run rampant.
Gun rights strike me as a political fiction. You only really get to enjoy them if you're not threatened by over-policing. As soon as you start asserting those rights against a government bureaucrat, they vanish.
Conservatives in power currently want to take away a woman's right to a divorce. Your argument literally moves the Overton window to the right even further.
And giving tyrants access to a standing army is immoral in itself.
i disagree, but love the way you write, i wish i thought differently just so i could agree with someone who writes like this
i think we need women to be able to have access to weapons to prevent the hell of women being sold as chattel which happens in some countries. none of the women sold as chattel have good weapons.
if i were a hero, i would go to these places, even if it were alone, and likely to face torture and death, to try to free them
Bro thinks meal team six is going to stop the government lol. They are already taking our liberties. Why didn't guns save us during banning abortion? Why are guns not helping us defend our freedom of speech? Do you think some random authoritarian fucks are legitimately willing to fight the government over political differences? What liberties have they not taken already, or that they cannot take? If in some unrealistic scenario where the boomers won a small fight in some small town, do you think the government would just let them be? Do you not think the authoritarian fucks would use their guns to defend the government vs fight against it? They already use their votes to suppress our liberties, I have no doubt they'd choose to use their guns too.