Those TTAG readers who have followed the issue of bump stocks and banning the devices will likely recall that in mid-June the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the ban implemented during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
In the 6-3 decision, the court ruled that a bump stock does not magically turn a semi-automatic firearm into a “machine gun,” which could be regulated under the Gun Control Act.
Unlike some recent gun-rights cases before the Supreme Court, this case did not involve the Second Amendment right to bear arms but a federal law that defines a machine gun as any weapon that can fire “more than one shot,” “automatically,” and “by a single function of the trigger.”
In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explained that each time a shooter fires a rifle, the shooter must “release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before re-engaging the trigger for another shot.” The bump stock, he wrote, “merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate ‘functions’ of the trigger” by allowing the shooter to quickly press the trigger again.
True to form, less than a week later, Democrats in the U.S. Senate were already attempting to pass legislation banning the devices again. Only strong opposition by Republicans stalled the measure, prompting gun-hating Sen. Chuck Schumer to castigate Republican senators for their lack of support.
Now, anti-gun Democrats are at it again. According to a report at wsbtv.com, federal lawmakers were back to debating the issue late last week, with lawmakers on Capitol Hill hearing from a survivor of the Las Vegas shooting, anti-gun advocates and gun-rights supporters on the issue.
At the hearing, Democrat U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin criticized the U.S. Supreme Court and the justices who struck down the ban.
“The Republican-appointed Justices concluded wrongly, in my view, that the Trump administration could not define bump stocks as machine guns under the National Firearms Act,” Durbin said. Fortunately, just because Durbin thinks that doesn’t mean it’s true.
While Senate Democrats are pushing for a bill that would make it clear that the National Firearms Act includes bump stocks, which it does not, Republican opposition is likely to doom such a measure from the start. Still, the bill has already been filed and could be considered in the upcoming 2025 session.
In the end, it is unlikely that Democrats will be able to ram through a bump stock ban, giving the clean sweep by Republicans on election day, capturing the U.S. Senate, retaining the U.S. House majority and winning the presidency. And it’s unlikely Trump would push such a ban again since that’s about the only anti-gun move he made during his first presidency.
Equally unlikely is that the Supreme Court will let such a ban stand if Democrats manage to pass one, given the court’s earlier ruling on the matter.
Republicans need to respond to this bill by filing a bill of their own that mandates a 60-day amnesty to register machine guns every calendar year. Bring them out of the shadows and get them properly documented. There are probably more undocumented machine guns in the United States then there are undocumented immigrants. Every single person that I know who has a transferable machine gun also has a couple of clones of that gun with the exact same serial number and they never keep them in the same place at the same time.
Republicans need to respond to this bill by filing a bill of their own that ends the NFA et. seq.
There, fixed it for ya.
Gman
The rationale for suggesting what I suggested is that we would be adopting the language frequently used by the Democrats and throwing it back in their face.
The one important fact about the anti gunners is that if……If they had half a brain, they’d be…..half-wits !
When I was a kid most of the adults in my circle had been in ww2 or Korea. Sometimes both. The bringbacks were something else. I doubt many of those had any paper trail at all.
I dated a young lady back in the 90s whose father served in Vietnam. we had been dating about 6 months when we went down into the basement that I had been to may times. He stood there quietly for a few seconds then said, ” I’m going to show you something but you must swear to never tell anyone. I agreed and he walked over to a large cabinet and slide it to one side. Behind that cabinet was a steel vault door. He opened the door and turned on the lights. What was inside took my breath away. Fully automatic firearms of every description as well as 3 M72 LAW and a MA-2 with cases of ammo stacked floor to ceiling. It was then that I found out he had been a member of Seal Team K-74888 in Vietnam. Unfortunately me and his daughter broke up a couple of years later and he passed away about 10 years ago. I never found out what happened to all that ordinance and I’m not real sure his daughter was even aware of it. God Rest his soul. we miss you Buzz.
I like the idea of opening the registry, it would be nice to have and machine gun options besides pre-hughes 80s relics that cost tens of thousands, or needing a SOT to either manufacturer or transfer dealer only guns or the law letter demos.
It does seem a little strange with NFA stuff, registered per weapon, if you can legally have one short barrelled rifle, but having a second isn’t unless registered. If you are safe to own one, no problem with multiples right? The alternative would be some type of license, all you can eat, but then if they pulled your license, your collection is bad, plus what if you forget to renew, how much does that cost… I don’t trust them to implement such a thing without making it even worse than the current situation. Either repeal Hughes and NFA weapons, or best to leave it as is.
Congress really doesn’t have the authority to regulate firearms. They had to take a circuitous route to doing so by doing it through their powers of Taxation and the interstate commerce clause. the interstate commerce clause was created to prevent States from implementing tariffs on other states and it wasn’t intended to give the federal government omnipotent regulatory power over every single thing that exists. Congress does have unchecked taxation power but they do not have the authority to tax a fundamental Civil Right.
They are not taxing the right, not directly, under the NFA, they are taxing the weapon itself. Since we are taxed federally for conservation, plus state and local sales tax, so it is not unconstitutional.
If democrats, et al, can’t see/understand the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, should they succeed in getting this bill passed, they will then declare semi-automatics to be machine guns. These people lack the intelligence to understand/comprehend simple English including the words in the 2nd Amendment. They are good/bad at twisting and I am not talking about the ‘dance’.
Unfortunately there are a lot of pro-bump stock ban Republicans, from Trump, sen Rick Scott, Florida Republican leadership, obviously NRA was supporting and encouraging it like Ms. Hammer and Wayne. Even on these online forums bump stocks and machine guns seem to be treated as ammo wasters and it seems like a lot of gun owners aren’t bothered much by a ban, at least in the comments.
A decent number of states, even Republican led passed extra bump stock bans in case the federal ban was overturned, “double banned.”
I would think given the chance Trump or most Republicans would ban them again if they didn’t get too much push back, maybe as a trade for something they want.
I think bump stocks, pistol braces, as well as new machine guns and SBRs should be legal and deregulated but I don’t think that is a priority or agreed with by Republican leadership. Not on the platform, I don’t see that mentioned as a vision by prospective campaigns or platforms, usually not much other than “we won’t take your guns like Biden and Kamala!” and national reciprocity, maybe dabble in HPA but that’s about it.
I’ll speak on this. I trust republicans only a bit more than Dims. SEE:Vietnam and all the pointless mideast adventures. As well as Ukraine. Clearly Europe hasn’t stepped up with notable exceptions IE Britain.
I think DeSantis will nominate a pro-2A ally as the next senator. I was hoping Rick Scott would be appointed to the Trump admin to take him out of the senate.
The democrats don’t want to pass a bump stock ban to ban bump stocks but to re define what a machine gun is which would be pretty much anything that can potentially increase the rate of fire of a semi automatic firearm such as shorter reset, lighter trigger, etc. Buyer beware of what they will try to do.
At the time bump stock crybabies did not understand it was either bump stocks going under the bus or include a laundry list of other items including the Franklin Binary trigs advertised on this forum. By EO POTUS DJT left the door open for a court to decide bump stocks which eventually went in the favor of Rights. Funny how those the knee jerk finger pointing crybabies demonized did not have a cow over the reversal.
Since the crybabies have a problem with being told facts the below attorney explains POTUS DJT and bump stocks. Bump stock info comes later in the video so educate yourselves…connect the h…
h ttps://youtube.com/watch?v=7QM9jCCW1V4&feature=shared
Still arguing.
What is what is not.
The Second Amendment does not allow a government to control what weapons a United States citizen can possess.
Our daddies gave them the inch they needed with the NFA out of ignorance and trust.
What Constitutional Rights are our children or great grandchildren going to be allowed to have?
The “gun community” has never ever supported machine gun ownership for the civilian population. They never supported anyone having “a range toy.”
Which tells me they don’t believe you can have fun, and be responsible with guns at the same time.
Never forget. Nancy Pelosi ordered machine guns to be used, to defend the capital against peaceful protesters. She didn’t like.
And the “gun community” is comfortable with only the government having machine guns.