Mark LaRue of LaRue Tactical says he's not in favor of banning bump fire stocks.

Earlier today we ran a post noting that Mark LaRue of LaRue Tactical was among those in firearms community who are favor of the regulation of bump fire stocks. We weren’t alone in that assessment. Apparently Mr. LaRue felt the need to clarify his position regarding these now controversial firearms accessories and sent this via email blast:

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58 COMMENTS

  1. Well, I’m not going to point any moral;
    I’ll leave that for yourself
    Maybe you’re still walking, you’re still talking
    You’d like to keep your health.
    But every time I read the papers
    That old feeling comes on:
    We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy
    And the big fool says to push on.

    — Pete Seeger

    • I only saw the argument about ‘waterhoses’ not be protected by the 2nd Amendment thus implying that bump fire stocks are not protected. Is that the offending statement or is there more?

      • He basically said if you can make a gun go bang with something he doesn’t sell, it isn’t protected since it’s not ‘gun stuff,’ even though you’d obviously be using the stuff to fire your gun (not sure how else to interpret that ‘garden hose’ statement). Glad to see he quickly realized how idiotic he was.

        It appears the anti gunners have finally found the perfect ‘hack,’ similar to the Fudd-tactics back in the 70s. Only a small percentage of shooters actually like making noise (i.e. having fun by shooting as they can, as opposed to carefully aiming, or purchasing wildly overpriced automatics) and of that subset only a fraction use bump stocks as opposed to fast fingers. Much like the original NFA, the notion of too-fast fire ‘scares’ many people who otherwise believe in gun rights. Scares them so badly they fail to think about the implications of a ban, which by both word & spirit would extend to *any* firearm than can be bumpfired.

        Everything with a disconnector would be ensnared, since that is the mechanical device that causes the gun to repeatedly fire when bumped against your trigger finger. The stock is nothing; it’s just a loose interface that a wimpy grip can duplicate pretty easily. All the prosecution has to do is get your autoloader, and have an ATF agent bump fire it a couple times on camera for the court room, and your ass is grass. Doubt me? Look up the incident in which they fed soft-primered ammo to an AR15 with a broken disconnector to make it uncontrollably slam fire through a magazine in order to nail a guy who had no such ammo in his possession.

    • No, it’s not.

      It’s clarifying the ambiguity that MAC and other AR15.com users took hold of and spun into something they could pretend to be outraged about.

      Tim Harmsen trolling for clicks? Say it isn’t so.

  3. Sounds like his employees might’ve had a slight mutiny or he saw such a severe backlash it scared him or both.

    I care not. He made his bed, same as with tactical firearms.

    I just feel sorry for his employees though.

    • pretty sure arfcom jumped down his throat almost instantly; as much as he posts over there, he clearly cares about his ‘rep’ –which is why the NRA hasn’t budged an inch on their now openly anti-NFA stance.

  4. Mr LaRue, its to late for you now. You had your chance. When a disaster hits people reveal themselves. Coward, hero, defender, or just trying to survive.
    You sir are a coward.

  6. I find the comment about working to reform the NRA a bit difficult.

    We could get a whole big bunch of people to join up so that a new set of voices could be heard. But…. the NRA would take the increase in membership numbers as support of its current direction away from the Rights of its members.

    Or…. we could continue to encourage people to quit their membership so that we put the pain in their pocket book at which point maybe they will be a bit more willing to listen to its members and quit giving in on things like bump-fire stocks.

    Other than that….. Did LaRue ‘clarify’ his opinion because he was misunderstood? Or because he got a lot of pushback?

    • While I have no way of verifying this, I’d be willing to bet most of the gun owners currently furious with the NRA aren’t members anyway. Notice with a lot of the comments when this uproar started, many were preempted with the caveat “This is why I’m not a member” or “This is why I haven’t been a member in years”. So is the NRA misrepresenting it’s membership? Some, surely. But not as many as it might seem. Just a hunch.

      That’s not to say they can’t improve as an organization…..

      • ” I’d be willing to bet most of the gun owners currently furious with the NRA aren’t members anyway.”

        If there are 5M NRA members, and let’s call it 100M gun owners, then only around 5% of gun owners are NRA members. So your statement would most likely be true even if every NRA member is incensed.

    • Also keep in mind that that unless you’re a life or higher member, or have been a member for five years or more, you don’t get to vote in the NRA’s elections.

      So most new members start off disenfranchised anyway. In some senses this is a safety mechanism against a flood of antis joining and voting to shut it all down. But it also provides a real damping mechanism on membership feedback.

      • So the new NRA members who want change( shut it down) can’t vote, how convenient. Also I wonder how many businesses and outside ventures , assets, the NRA has? Maybe they really don’t need your money after all.

        • There’s a reason life members with 5 years of membership only can vote. Ordinary 1 year membership is $25. How much do you think Bloomberg and other filthy, subhuman, Liberal Terrorists™ would pay to DESTROY the NRA? Well, for $50 million, (2 million new voting members) they could steal control of the entire board. It’s a defense mechanism and I support it.

    • You can go read the thread on AR15.com yourself and decide. I am personally not ready to throw him under the bus after reading it. I don’t really agree with him, but it mostly sounded like he was just defending the NRA. I feel like boycotting a business over a series of posts made while in the middle of a flame war might be harsh. He is definitely on thin ice though.

    • The NRA just changed its bylaws to make the leadership less/unaccountable to the membership. No 1970’s revolt by Chuck Hestons this time, LaPierre has a good thing going, and aims to keep it. Hell, former president Marion Harris is calling outraged members ‘dissidents’ like some kind of tin pot dictator for crying out loud.

  7. Let me preface by saying I am a libertarian and strongly capitalist.

    Crony capitalists will always do what they need to in order to protect their business interests. As long as there is a government entity that can ban objects or in any way threaten or shape business interests in any way there will always be cronies and hangers-on.

    So, you can and should direct your ire at Mr. LaRue, but also note that nothing will change unless we seek to form a more perfect (very small) government. This new government does not need to be involved in any commerce. It does not need to be involved in healthcare. It does not need to be involved in trade. Let the free market and the invisible hand take care of commerce.

    • You do realize crony-capitalism is a slander term cooked up by communists to disparage free markets, right? By definition, a market-evading crony scumbag is not conducting business in a capitalistic manner, but is instead manipulating those around him for his own benefit by force, in basically the same manner as the corrupt government officials also party to the incestuous relationship.

      • Sure…but if it’s an apt description…

        “Capitalist” as in they’re at least willing to be a private businessman. Communists don’t even want there to be any private businessmen…they want government to have full control and operation of every industry and business.

        And you also seem to have missed by greater point by choosing instead to focus on the term I chose to use:

        Many businessmen start out as a true free market capitalist. They devote their entire lives and fortunes into building a successful business. There’s huge risk and huge reward in business. One day the .gov comes along and threatens Mr. Free Market Capitalist with destroying everything he’s invested in and worked so hard to achieve by diktat or fatwa so he instead acquiesces to their demands for regulations or taxes or whatever thinking that as long as he can still keep a piece of the pie then that’s better than nothing. And in return he asks the .gov to create barriers to entry to keep new competition from arising or to tax foreign competition or whatever. So they get in bed together and now Mr. Free Market Capitalist has transformed into Mr. Crony Capitalist.

        • Government that treats business as an indiscrete privilege (privilege wholly at the discretion of the government) needs to be hunted and burned alive.

          ” ““Capitalist” as in they’re at least willing to be a private businessman. Communists don’t even want there to be any private businessmen…they want government to have full control and operation of every industry and business.” ”

          Communism is a huge pyramid scheme where a few people try to run (and gain from) all at the top. Those at the top of Communist empires are extremely wealthy, and even more so when compared with their lower tiered citizenry. Chinese elite live in luxury, when common citizens often starve in a hard winter. North Korea has a small handful of VERY wealthy families, when less than twenty years ago their people were compelled to resort to cannibalism to survive drought, harsh winters, and prolonged food shortages. Fidel Castro presided over a very decrepit Cuba for more than 40 years, and left his estate holdings worth $900 + Million. Maduro in Venezuela, hands out toilet paper and medicine to his ‘clique’ when professionals / teachers / doctors are resorting to prostitution and dumpster diving to feed themselves and their families.

          Communism is evil, and doesn’t just need to go away, it needs to live in fear, be hunted, and die a prolonged and brutal public death, wherever it is found, and regardless of whatever imbued person espouses it.

    • With the changing demographics and the voting statistics combined, you are living in fantasy land. We are moving further to the left because people who vote left are having more kids than people who vote right and the low IQ populations is having more kids than the high IQ population. Look around at just what type of people are in the libertarian movement, maybe you will get what I’m saying. I used to be into that Utopian escapism as well, then I realized society is going the opposite direction and no amount of libertarian arguments was going to fix the issue. Simply put, the country is no longer ours.

  8. OK then Mr. LaRue, endorse NFA repeal. Every fake 2A support I’ve asked that of runs away as fast as they can.

  9. We can certainly work through the NRA as long as Wayne LaPierre is fired.

    But Gunny in charge!

    Semper Fi Gunny!

      • I dunno, R. Lee Ermey participated in some really stupid TV programs. Especially the one where they did some irrelevant tests with a decent katana and a POS longsword and after demonstrating terrible form, declared the katana the superior sword type. It was so bad that I winced all the way through.

      • Jesus Christ, no wonder the NRA thinks it can pull the wool over idiotic gun owners’ heads. Ermey is nearly the epitome of the “cool toys for me, not for thee” elitist crowd. Yeah, he supports gun rights, but only so far as the guns aren’t scary. Which in my view makes him worthless, and/or nutless as a 2nd Amendment advocate. While Ermey was re-elected to the board again this past year, a number of upstarts seeking to oppose this soft-handed worthlessness were defeated because they didn’t have their face plastered all over an anti-army movie from the sixties. At the same time, the voting bylaws were changed to favor the incumbents even more.

  10. I believe him.

    Admittedly, I think that the NRA’s strategy of “give it back to the ATF to handle, rather than introducing new legislation” has merit, but Larue’s press statement rings true to me.

    “There can be no steps backward” is a much more clear statement than is a snarky post he made on arfcom which seemed like it was more critical of the specific argument being raised by someone than the actual topic at hand.

    • Yup, leave it to the brainiacs who determined that putting a SIG brace against your shoulder ‘redesigned’ it into a rifle stock. Gee, what d’ya think they’ll say when someone chooses to loosely hold an AR pistol grip and pull the gun forward onto their trigger finger with the opposite hand on the forearm… Either that gun (and by extension every gun that is mechanically identical) becomes a contraband machine gun, or bump-firers will be getting their trust information engraved onto their index fingers.

  11. “..shall not be infringed.” you either support the second amendment or you don’t. parts, stocks, ammo, barrel shrouds, fully automatic, semi automatic, big bore, plinkers, forward grips.. etc.

    once you as a gun person start ‘being reasonable’ about what should or shouldn’t be legal on a gun, you give power to the incremental destruction of our rights. “X” amount of bump fires killed no-one yesterday is the same argument used by potg about law abiding gun owners. bump fire’s don’t kill people, people kill people.

  12. I was gonna buy into the whole new 244 Valkyrie at and Ammo they are coming out with. Guess he saved me a easy 5-7k.

    Thanks mark!

    • You could build .223 WSSM or .22×6.8/.22DTI for much less, they are already dead cartridges so you won’t disappointed when when they die;-)

  13. Larue made his bed.
    I’ll never do business with them again.
    And when I buy something from a competitor, I’ll let larue know about it.

  14. Sent my Email about a hour ago denouncing any consumer support for La Rue tactical. Springfield rule still applies.

  16. Literally people are having a fit over a comment from a message board that wasn’t even really saying what they claim it said.

    Gun owners are like a bunch of women on their periods, holy hell.

  17. I missed the offending comment
    The press release in this article is very well done
    Pro 2 A and pro bump stock
    Reform NRA to reflect views of rest of us
    Sounds good to me!

  18. Blah blah blah. I want to know Mark if you are prepared, if it becomes necessary, to start killing these Liberal Terrorists™ that are America’s most dangerous enemies, because they pose an existential threat to our Constitutional Rights. That’s what being a supporter of the second amendment means. Literally fighting against tyranny.

  20. Really? Almost 60 people are dead in the worst mass shooting in modern history, gun-grabbers are out en masse urging all sorts of new gun control measures, and you’re going to make this about Mark LaRue?

    Second Amendment rights currently enjoy strong public support in most places in our country (Democrat-controlled states and cities and federal courts excepted). One of the quickest ways I know to lose that support is to go “absolutist” on the Second Amendment.

    We have laws regulating guns, so the we lost the “shall not be infringed” argument a long time ago. Some of those laws are sensible (you can’t sell guns to criminals, mentally deranged, children, etc), some impose minor inconveniences (CC licenses), and some are bad (bans on public carry and “assault weapons”) and need to be changed.

    No constitutional right is absolute. You have the right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean you can defame me or lie under oath. You have the right to religious freedom, but that doesn’t mean you can sacrifice your first born to your deity. Going absolutist on the 2A will do nothing but make you look like a crazy, and nobody wants to support crazies.

    Here’s what will happen if gun owners lose public support: legislatures will pass MORE restrictive gun laws and courts will UPHOLD them, further diminishing 2A rights in the one forum where it really counts. We already have enough problems with federal judges ignoring the 2A and Heller—don’t give them more laws to uphold.

    Tell me WHY bump stocks should not be regulated. Make coherent arguments. But think about this: Do we really want gun rights to die on the hill of bump stocks???

    And leave Mark LaRue alone.

    • THE ONLY COHERENT ARGUMENT THAT NEEDS TO BE MADE ON THIS SUBJECT:

      THE OBAMA ATF ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION SAID THEY WERE OK

      WHAT IF TEN GUYS WERE IN THAT ROOM WITH SCOPED BOLT GUNS WITH TARGET TRIGGERS AND MUZZLE BRAKES SHOOTING $40 A BOX MATCH AMMO AND KILLED THE SAME AMOUNT OF PEOPLE OR MORE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BAN ALL THAT STUFF TOO

      WE CANT BE BANNING EVERYTHING THAT BAD PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS WITH

      • Ok. At least you’re making an argument, not responding emotionally (although it would help if you turned off all caps).

        Your argument compares apples and oranges. If 10 guys in the same room killed the same number of people with bolt guns, scopes, and match triggers, we should strongly oppose any efforts to ban bolt guns, scopes, and match triggers. Why? Because these weapons and accessories are in common use and banning them would significantly burden the right to keep and bear arms. That’s a hill to die on, so to speak.

        But bump fire stocks are not like precision rifles. They are mostly range toys. They are notoriously inaccurate and often unreliable, and they are not particularly useful for target shooting or self defense. Few serious firearm owners have them. I have never seen one in hundreds of visits to shooting ranges (I have seen multitudes of precision rifles, though, and I own and compete with them regularly).

        Until Las Vegas, bump fire stocks were largely confined to the world of YouTube videos. But now we have an evil person (apparently) using them to kill scores of people. That’s what they call a game changer.

        As a gun rights community, we now have to decide whether to (1) support regulation of bump stocks much like machine guns are regulated (as the NRA has proposed) or their outright ban (as recently-introduced legislation seeks to do), or (2) oppose any regulation or ban at all out of fear our 2A rights will be compromised.

        If we opt for (1), we must make sure than any proposed regulation/ban is carefully worded so as not to send us down the slippery slope and open the door to additional gun laws. If we opt for (2), we must make intelligent and persuasive arguments for why we oppose what appears to most people to be a sensible and minimalist response to the Las Vegas tragedy so that we don’t come across as “crazies” who oppose any and every gun regulation and undermine public support for gun rights.

  21. boycott em dont boycott em…who cares…theyre too expensive anyway

    $1300 for an upper…please…

    “it has to be 1 moa or less at 100 yards before it leaves our factory”

    GREAT!

    ive never paid more than $400 for an upper and ive never had one that shot over 1 moa at 100 yards

    the least accurate upper i ever bought was a 16″ mid length heavy barrel 1/7 carbine from PSA that shoots right about 1 moa at 100 yards with a $100 2 moa primary arms red dot and stock single stage mil spec trigger and cheap ammo

    the other two are HARDENED ARMS 16″ carbine lengths one 1/9 the other 1/7 that both shoot groups with all holes touching at 100 yards with a $200 2-8 power vortex scope a single stage mil spec trigger and cheap ammo

    never been in the military…never took a training class

    with the money i saved by not buying larue tactical i have enough to build at least 3 more rifles

    they can keep their opinions ill keep my money

  22. remember when rahm emmanuel said never let a good crisis go to waste

    i sure do

    thats whats going on

    right here

    right now

    and we have gun owners and politicians with an r behind their name and gun bloggers like johannes paulsen who are going right along with it

    they should be squarely in our camp but theyre not

    theres almost no daylight between them and the gun grabbers right now inasmuch as theyre all on the same page:

    BAN SOMETHING *ANYTHING* SO WE CAN FEEL GOOD

    this is a carefully planned and orchestrated and executed attack on the 2nd amendment

    THERE IS NO AMOUNT OF CAPITULATING OR BACKPEDALING OR SACRIFICING THAT WE CAN DO OR COMMON SENSE THINGS WE CAN OFFER UP THAT WILL *EVER* SATISFY THOSE WHO WOULD ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT ALTOGETHER ALL WE DO IS MAKE THEM GROW IF WE FEED THEM

    “we make a stand NOW or there will be nobody left to go to the chopper”

  25. Hi my name is MiserableBastard and I own a slidefire, got it from grabagun a couple years ago. I also picked up the Bair Arms combo (ak-ar) bump thingies 6 months ago or thereabouts. I bought a TacCon trigger a couple years ago, and early summer got the Franklin Armory BFS III. I used the slide fire a once on an AR, it was meh, put it on a S&W M&P 15-22 and it was more meh. The Bair Arms thingies are sitting on my desk because they only work with the A2 grip which I hate and the skinny little AK grips which I also hate. The TacCon was a big disappointment, I can shoot faster with my timney 3.5# single stage AR trigger. The BFS III I got had an out of spec hammer amongst other things and Franklin Armory ended up sending me a corrected setup, it is stilling sitting in a box since I got it back a few months ago.

    The day before yesterday I saw a post where a guy bump fired an ar with a rubber band. Today I found a rubber band in the junk drawer hooked one end around the top part of the trigger bow on my suppressed scorpion sbr pulled it around the magwell and hooked the other end on the trigger. I went to my LGS and tried it out in his sandbox. After 1 20 round mag I was able to consistently fire 4 round bursts very easily.

    All that shit is legal and if I want to waste my money on ammo, I can.

  27. For the past 10 years I’ve only heard bad stories about larue. I don’t give a f*** that he includes sugar/chile powder (dillo dust) and stickers in his shipping boxes, the cost of that “kind gesture” gets unloaded on the customer anyways. I ordered a QD tripod mount from larue because they were the only company I knew who offered that specific option, what a mistake. Every opportunity this guy has to speak publicly he embarrasses himself.

  28. I can’t find Larue’s original comments anywhere. If it’s only on FB, then screw that. I’m not creating an account just to read that.

    So I don’t have an opinion on this, since In can’t see what he actually wrote. It’s true, though, anyone can miscommunicate from time to time. It’s also true that people can misjudge the flak they’ll catch for their remarks, forcing them to backpedal later. So we’ll see how it plays out.

  29. Regard, not regards.

    If you’re going to make a formal statement, use formal English.

    The 0.4% of us out there who know grammar pay attention to grammar.

  30. lift the 1934 Democrat machine gun ban which by the way was caused by Capone and boys along with Clyde Barrow and Ho Bonnie! the Ban was perpetrated by the need too help Chicago,
    Chicago kills more people in a week than Las Vegas does all year, yet being a strong hold of the Benedict Arnold party {Democrat} nothing is said and done about it.
    better yet send a bunch of Dildos to the Democrats, figure a 100,000 would block the aisle for a day, might even cause envy

    • “I think this thing is stupid so you guys should be fine with people in the gun industry arguing that banning it is fine, even if you do think it’s protected by the second amendment.”

      With “friends” like you and LaRue, who need enemies. I didn’t know “that’s stupid” was such a great argument for government infringement. Perhaps we should default to what fudds support, hunting rifles only. Assault rifles are stupid, after all.

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