As the Biden administration gears up to pass fresh guidance on pistol stabilizing braces, I humbly suggest that this is precisely the time to get working on legislation to remove SBRs — short barreled rifles — from the purview of the 1934 National Firearms Act.
Arguments and assertions from the DOJ / ATF / Biden administration related to pistol braces only strengthen the case that SBRs shouldn’t be subject to special scrutiny as compared to rifles with 16-inch or longer barrels.
In my comprehensive “How Does ATF’s Vague Pistol Brace Guidance Contradict Itself?” article, I went section-by-section through the draft guidance document (which, to be sure, is going to be the model for whatever comes out of the Biden White House if it isn’t simply used verbatim) and played angel’s advocate, arguing why each and every section was and is wrong, vague, inconsistent, misleading, anti-factual, self-contradictory, and/or just plain dishonest.
The Biden administration is in the final stages of drafting a regulation on firearm accessories that can be used to make pistols more like rifles . . .
. . . The firearm accessory can make pistols more accurate and deadlier. It effectively transforms a pistol into a short-barreled rifle . . .
Does your head also spin when you see the exact same people who have always banned or attempted to ban “assault weapon” features on the basis that they allow for “spraying fire” and “firing from the hip,” and have banned “Saturday Night Specials” in part due to their inherent inaccuracy now railing against pistol stabilizing braces for having exactly the opposite effect?
I’m sorry, but can y’all please decide if accuracy is a good thing or a bad thing? I’ll give you a hint: it’s good.
From Senator Dianne Feinstein’s official .gov website, on a page about her proposed Assault Weapon Ban of 2013:
A pistol grip makes it easier for a shooter to rapidly pull the trigger, facilitates firing from the hip and allows a shooter to quickly move the weapon from side to side to spray a wider range.
The pistols that the Biden administration wants to keep braceless are, you know, pistols and are equipped with, yes, pistol grips. Those same, scary pistol grips that Feinstein asserts facilitate firing from the hip and allow quickly moving the weapon from side to side.
What I’m hearing is that if, as the Biden administration and DOJ would have us believe, a pistol brace turns these pistols into rifles, which are fired from the shoulder, then they alleviate a major concern found in every passed and attempted federal and state regulation on “assault weapons” since 1994. Plus their additional 10-or-so inches added to the rear of the pistol creates a physical impediment to quickly moving the weapon from side to side.
Score one for pistol braces, then. I expect we’ll see AWB proponents advocating for braces, then? Intellectually consistent types as they are.
From the Giffords Law Center page on firearm “Design Safety Standards,” the gun control group explains why “junk guns,” AKA “Saturday Night Specials,” are so bad:
. . . Experts criticized the low quality of these guns, which were poorly constructed, inaccurate, unreliable, and widely considered inappropriate for either personal protection or sporting purposes. The State of California responded to this public safety threat in 1999 by adopting safety standards for handguns . . .
Yes, that’s correct, in their pitch for “gun safety,” the Giffords Law Center believes that accuracy is critical for a firearm to have legitimate personal protection or sporting purposes. They laud the eight states with regulations related to handgun design and safety standards, most of which have either required testing and/or a list of handguns approved for sale in that state.
For instance, Maryland’s roster of approved handguns takes into consideration ballistic accuracy as one of the factors for determining whether the gun is sufficiently safe and has legitimate utility for sporting, self protection, or law enforcement use.
To be clear, these states want accuracy, and the Giffords Law Center wants the .gov to require it. After all, accuracy is safety. Accuracy is a precursor to providing discriminate application of force, as opposed to the “spray and pray” style indiscriminate fire that is (or was?) the bogeyman of the anti-gun crowd.
The Truth is that firing a handgun proficiently and accurately is difficult. Especially a large one. A pistol stabilizing brace, through the stability provided by its additional point of contact, does, as the Biden admin suggests, make a pistol more accurate. This is a beneficial, safe, and moral thing, and even these very same people have made this perfectly clear over the last few decades.
Whether used as designed — braced against one’s forearm — or used to somehow make the pistol “more like a rifle” as the DOJ is selling, accuracy is safety and to suggest otherwise is, to put it gently, disingenuous.
You know what provides even more stability than a pistol stabilizing brace? A shoulder stock. If accuracy is good (it is) and safe (it is) and “spraying fire from the hip” is bad (sure, fine), then SBRs are better and safer and should be treated like any standard [title 1] firearm.
But, alas, they are not. The SBR, the short barreled rifle, is subject to a $200 tax, a long (nine or more months) approval process, a full-on federal registration, and restrictive ownership and transportation laws. The SBR is treated as a uniquely dangerous weapon. And an SBR is precisely what Biden’s DOJ says a brace-equipped pistol effectively can be due to its ability to be fired more accurately than without the brace.
Unfortunately for the gun control crowd, any sort of data suggesting that pistol brace-equipped pistols or SBRs are in any way uniquely dangerous simply doesn’t exist. In fact, very much the opposite! We have solid data that these guns are uniquely unlikely to be used in crime.
With at least six million pistol brace-equipped pistols in private hands, there have been two (2) known criminal acts committed with such a firearm over the last eight or more years. If you’re aware of more please link it in the comments. TTAG has, to the best of my knowledge, seen two incidents. Out of, again, at minimum six million braced pistols in peoples’ hands in the U.S.
We have even better, more, official .gov data that show SBRs are not likely to be used for criminal purposes. State and federal crime data for decades has show that rifles of all types are used in approximately three percent of murders and that about 1.3% of armed criminals are armed with any sort of rifle.
Short barreled rifles, being a tiny little fraction of the larger rifles category (yet legally owned by well over 400,000 Americans and only a hacksaw away from creation and use by any criminal), are patently not likely to be used for criminal purposes and the data very clearly bear this out.
For those who like to point to other countries as enlightened examples of what the U.S. should do or consider, allow me to note that we are the only country I know of in the world — despite the vast majority of other “Western” countries having stricter gun control laws — to regulate rifles based on barrel length. The 1934 NFA law that created these restrictions is antiquated, irrelevant, and proven to be unnecessary.
Instead of further restricting braced pistols or adding braced pistols to the NFA, we should remove SBRs from it. It’s possible, too. In December of 2019, H.R. 5289, which would have done just that, was introduced in the House. That bill was referred to multiple committees, and received 25 co-sponsors.
Let’s keep pushing. This is the permanent solution to ATF’s continued rogue actions to undermine the firearm industry, gun ownership, and the Second Amendment writ large.
Even if a remove-SBRs-from-the-NFA bill isn’t viable until after the 2022 elections, now is the time to hone our arguments, draft our bill, and drum up support. If 2022 goes our way, we need to have this bill already chambered and ready to fire.
NO, remove the NFA
Anything Jim Crow Gun Control joe does shares the same stench of the Gun Control that allowed the military wing of the democRat Party known as the KKK to terrorize defendless Blacks. And not just in the South as democRat whitewashers want fools to believe. OR it has the stench of nazi jack booted thugs hauling defenseless Jews off to concentration camps.
Until Gun Control is seen for what history has proven it to be the neck of the 2A remains in a noose.
Ideally, yes. Which is why this should be supported by everyone, because it would be a solid step toward that righteous goal.
Exactly, the only correct action is to put an end to the NFA. Not only do none of their rules and regulations make any sense, but they are also only a bureaucratic agency but are acting in a legislative capacity which is clearly outside of the scope of their authority.
But even beyond that, consider the following:
It is very clear to me that under our system of law, once a document is amended, the new provisions, conditions and the directives of the amendment override and supersede all that came before it. And that furthermore, if there are any areas of conflict between what is in the original document and what is in the amendment, it is always the provisions and the directives of the amendment that shall and must prevail. In any and all contract dispute cases, this is how the courts have always ruled and continue to rule to this day… And we must not forget nor overlook the fact that our Constitution is also a covenant and has been considered such from day one and so our U.S. Constitution is therefore also subject to the same rules of contract law.
With that in mind, the Founding Fathers used a very clear command directive in the Second Amendment that overrides and supersedes everything and anything that the government may attempt to rely upon for their claim of authority to regulate the firearms industry. And because only a new amendment can change the provisions of an existing amendment; Until such time as a new amendment is passed that specifically addresses firearms, the Second Amendment stands unaltered and as originally written and with its original meaning and with the force of its command directive that very clearly states, “the Right of the people to keep and bear arms Shall NOT be infringed”. In fact, the use of the word “SHALL” or in the negative, “SHALL NOT” implies mandatory and compulsory and thereby removes and eliminates all discretion and also makes clear that it is not subject to any reinterpretation of its very clear meaning. The truth of the matter is that any anti-gun law or regulation seeking to prohibit or license firearms in America is in fact a direct infringement on the command directive contained in the Second Amendment. Furthermore, in the first words of the Second Amendment its purpose is very clearly stated, and there are NO requirements for guns to have a so-called “sporting purpose”. Arms are any weapon that can be used for war by individual Americans to defend the country and the Constitution from outside enemies and/or from enemies within our country. And so even if the Founding Fathers would have ever wildly entertained the notion of including any such requirement for a so-called “sporting purpose”, I have no doubt that the sport in mind would have been the shooting of tyrants!
Understand also that history supports this notion that only by a constitutional amendment can the Constitution or any of its amendments be altered or reinterpreted or changed in any way. And one clear example of this is the fact that it took passing the 18th Amendment to ban alcohol in order to bring about the era of Prohibition. And that once the mistake of Prohibition was realized, it then took passing another amendment (the 21st Amendment) in order to put an end to Prohibition. Any new congressional act that would have been passed by the Congress or any presidential executive order would have been wholly insufficient to have lawfully accomplished this task as the 18th Amendment had made Prohibition “the supreme law of the land”. And which as a result then made it a requirement that in order to make any kind of formal change to the manner in which Prohibition was enforced, that a constitutional amendment would first be required in order to proceed with changing or altering any part of Prohibition. The Constitution is very clear that only via the constitutional amendment process can the Constitution be changed. And the constitutional amendment process is in the Constitution to guarantee that each and every state would have a vote and a say in matters having to do with any proposed changes to the Constitution.
There is much more that can be added to this argument, but the bottom line is this; Under our system of law (in following the explicit directives of the Constitution) the government lacks the lawful authority to regulate the firearms industry or an individual citizen’s Right to keep and bear arms. Prohibiting certain firearms or even requiring licensing is an act of infringement and violates the Constitution as currently amended.
“The Constitution of these United States is the supreme law of the land. Any law that is repugnant to the Constitution is null and void of law.” – Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137
Additionally, “An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.” Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425.
“Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them.” Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491.
Constitutional Right – “A right guaranteed to the citizens by the Constitution and so guaranteed as to prevent legislative interference therewith”. – Delaney v. Plunkett, 146 Ga. 547, 91 S. E. 561, 567, L. R. A. 1917D, 926, Ann. Cas. 1917E, 685. – Black’s Law Dictionary, 3rd Edition.
”The Constitution is a legal binding contract between the government and its employer (the American people). The U.S. Supreme Court was right when it said, “The Constitution is a written instrument and as such its meaning does not alter, that which it meant when it was adopted, it means now!”” U.S. vs. South Carolina (1905).
“The U.S. Supreme Court broadly and unequivocally held that licensing or registration of any Constitutional Right is itself unconstitutional.” — Follett vs. McCormick, S.C., 321 U.S. 573 (1944).
^^^AC ,This is a great post, one that must be repeated often !
And sawed off shotgunms.
The use of machine guns and short barrelled shotguns by crime syndicates and bank robbers in the 1920s and 30s was a large part of the impetus for passage of the NFA, and will be a huge argument that will be raised in opposition to any such bill. It will be argued that the necessity of a stamp is what reduces the use of these restricted firearms by would be felons, and that therefore removal of such items will increase “gun violence.”
I’m a crook, I want my shotgunm barrel short, and ghostly, I’ve got a hacksaw and a file. I’m going to rob a bank. But whoe’st me to me I’ll have to use the longer barrel and leave the stolen shotgunms serial numbers because I dont want to break the law while I rob the bank.
It’s only common sense.
There were only a very few instances of mobsters using machine guns and/or sawed off shotguns. Hollwierd doing it a lot in mobster movies is where people got the false idea that it was common. Same thing with switchblades. Fake news is as old as news.
Seems to me that Bonnie & Clyde used shotguns and automatic weapons (Clyde was a fan of the BAR) in every bank robbery they pulled, there was a famous massacre in Chicago where shotguns and Thompsons were employed, and that Chicago and New York saw a lot of shootouts between various gangs over control of the liquor market during Prohibition where any and all kinds of weapons, including shotguns and machine guns were employed. The Legislative record of the NFA has evidence of these concerns. Moreover, Mr. Miller of Miller v. US was armed with a sawed-off shotgun when he and his compatriots robbed a bank.
Switch blades are entirely different story. Those were outlawed as part of the effort to disarm the “undesirables” such as Italians, Mexicans, Chinese and any other low class minority group. For example, the original gun and weapons bans in California were explicitly racist. The list of banned weapons includes brass knuckles, saps, switch blades, dirks or daggers, balisongs, sword canes, and so on.
Remove the NFA. And all other gun laws. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!
The left has been very successful with an incremental approach, chipping away here and there, but always pushing toward their end goals. The same approach can work in our favor: we should push back on infringement wherever we can, whether we take big steps all at once, or a lot of small ones over time.
Agreed. #RepealTheNFA would be the ultimate goal. Removing SBRs would be a solid incremental step in that direction. Particularly when they get removed, 63 million are sold and made over the following 12 months, and then we can point to data showing that it had zero negative effect on crime rate, murder rate, percent of rifles used in crimes, etc etc. At that point making the case to remove other NFA items and proving that the entire NFA is (as stated in the op-ed) antiquated, irrelevant, and unnecessary will be easier and the case itself will be stronger. I just happen to think they’re accidentally providing us with some of the ammo we need to specifically go after treating SBRs as Title 1 firearms.
“Removing SBRs would be a solid incremental step in that direction.”
The smartest course of action is to use existing law to moot an SBR as an NFA device.
A brace allows a physically-handicapped person to exercise a civil right. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) makes it a crime to demand a handicapped individual to prove their disability to access an accommodation.
The question I have is, Jeremy, why are we not screaming loudly about ADA discrimination here?
The ADA has sharp criminal penalties to force its compliance on those who violate it…
The NFA was a knee jerk reaction to the gang wars and attempted assassination of a President in the 30’s. It did nothing to quell gang violence or eliminate what was perceived as dangerous weapons at the time. Gangsters still had the guns and still killed each other. Kind of like Chicago of today, just no machine guns being used.
Now for the brace on a pistol this is overreach at it’s best. I happen to have one in 556 and yes I do “on occasion” use the butt end of the brace against my shoulder. Why, to get better aim of course. If I remove that brace does it make that particular gun less lethal? Of course not. I could shot it like a standard pistol as it is low recoil. Or i could get an actual pistol with an extended mag which gives you just about the same firepower.
There should be no classification of a short barrel for anything. A gun is a gun and we have the rights to those. The one thing I might agree with (waiting on the blow back) is full auto. I don’t have a problem with a $200 stamp for those. They just waste bullets as they are hard to control and really just spray in no controlled pattern.
So, YOUR rights are OK, but I have to pay $200 for mine because you you think they are hard to control and really just pray in no controlled pattern???
FUDD!
Gersh,.
If you’re assumption about the pattern of a full auto firearm was true, you might have a valid argument based on safety reasons.
It is not true. It is demonstrably not true by regular shooters of fully automatic weapons. The idea that a fully automatic weapon is not controllable is pure myth. It has no basis in fact. A competent marksman can place every single round from a variety of shoulder fired weapons into a 19 inch silhouette at 100 yards with a single trigger pull. For belt fed firearms designed to be shot from a bipod, triple that distance. For pistols, speaking from experience, a competent marksman can fit every single round from a Glock 19C into that same silhouette at 25 yards. And with a single trigger pull.
FWIW, I once shot a full size UZI. 8-lb heavy bolt. Did not like it. Despite my best efforts, I simply couldn’t the muzzle in proper control on the silhouette at 10 yards, and stopped after two mags. That thing was a beast.
I’m certain that a skilled marksman, as you say, with experience on that platform could do very well, but it completely turned me off to full auto. I’d much rather stick with semi anyhow.
My 2 cents.
I appreciate that, but I think the key term was “once shot”. The uzi sucks, not a fan of it, but a 10 yard 19″ target should be very doable with a little bit of training.
“The idea that a fully automatic weapon is not controllable is pure myth. It has no basis in fact.”
The family of a nine year-old girl being assisted in firing an SMG of some sort might disagree with that, Jon. Didn’t end well for the instructor.
(Just saying…)
Geoff, the fact that 9-year-old girls are able to shoot SMGs proves my point.
JWT is obviously not familiar with the 9 year old girl + full auto SMG = disaster.
JWT, it does not prove your point.
Uh, aren’t belt fed weapsons designed for dispersion into a ‘beaten zone’? Their purpose is a long range shotgun, not a high volume precision weapon.
I actually agree on the full auto. If they were readily accessible to anyone, I could see a strong movement for repealing or amending the second amendment after a few incidents involving them. The whole rest of the NFA is BS that has no real affect on crime.
For the record, I’m no Fudd. I have plenty of black guns. About half with pistol braces.
If we could eliminate 2A infringements until we were left with just ONE remaining battle to fight about whether full auto firearms should be registered or not, I’d call that a huge win, honestly.
Gersh….re. “….really just spray in no controlled pattern.” Uh, that’s called “suppressive fire.” Unless you’ve actually been on the “receiving” end of suppressive fire, you don’t understand how it can truly encourage one to keep one’s head down and all body parts behind effective cover. But, it is a really, really comforting friend when one is on the “sending” end, and your gubmint is paying for the ammo.
The problem is that you have to purchase one that already has a stamp, they are not issuing stamps for fully auto weapons to the public anymore.
Yes, without a Hughes amendment repeal it doesn’t matter much, you can only transfer the slowly decreasing quantity of pre-86 registered machine guns and parts. These are at least 35 years old, and prices keep going up, enjoy that $40,000-60,000 M16 or MP5! $200 for a tax stamp is a drop in the bucket. The militia has no access to select-fire military hardware.
An arm braced pistol makes it too accurate. A machinegunm isnt accurate enough. And firing two blast from a scattergunm is president approved.
Gersh, kinda like the drug wars today? Seems that ANY prohibition brings out the worst in (criminal) people.
The NFA in its entirety needs to go. And the GCA. And all gun control.
“The NFA in its entirety needs to go.”
Not practical right now with a Leftist as president.
‘Nudge’. Kill SBRs via the ADA. It’s using the enemies own rules against them.
“#4 – Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
Saul Alinsky would approve… 🙂
I’ve been wondering why no one’s seemed to push hard to get SBRs off the NFA. Suppressors are all well and good, but that one seems like it’d be harder to get off the NFA since so many have bought into Hollywood BS about them. Even in my wildly anti-gun circles people are consistently shocked that you can’t put a stock on a pistol without going to federal prison for a decade. Also, getting one off the list directly gets the foot in the door for SBS and most if not all AOW. I am doubtful the NFA will ever not have destructive devices or machine guns, but if the law changes at all that can at least be the impetus to get the Hughes amendment out of the way. And once it moves a bit, momentum should carry suppressors off the list too.
I agree. Now, let’s consider the strategy implications.
Look at the logic being pursued by the gun-controllers:
1. – The SBR is a particularly dangerous weapon.
2. – Particularly dangerous weapons should be regulated more rigorously.
3. – The hand-gun “arm-brace” is the functional equivalent of an SBR.
4. – Therefore, the arm-brace should be regulated as an SBR.
The arm-brace regulation proponents are taking the initiative. It is THEY who initiate this debate over their proposed bill. Good. They must debate THEIR bill. Make them own-up to their own train of logic; beginning with #1, the (flawed) premise.
If the premise should be found to be flawed then the whole argument for THEIR bill falls apart.
We should AVOID allowing any other complaints dilute this argument. No discussion of the Hughes Amendment. No discussion of the NFA’s approach of prohibitive taxation. Simply make the arm-brace regulators defend the SBR regulation – from first principles – as worthy of any special treatment.
It is THIS that they cannot do. We should push them into the position of complaining that FDR and Congress caved too soon on including handguns in the NFA. PUSH them THERE. I.e., get them to concede that handguns are worthy of more rigorous regulation than SBRs. It’s too late for them to do much about handguns since Heller+McDonald.
Suppose we succeed. Not only will we have defended the arm-brace (a not particularly important objective). We will also have undermined confidence in the PRESUMED wisdom of the NFA.
If there is found a first flawed aspect of the design of the NFA then perhaps there might exist a second. The door is opened to SBSs.
If there are two, then perhaps there are three. Does Mr/Ms Sixpack voter understand AOWs? How about silencers in the NFA?
How about DDs? Why are there some rifles that are NOT deemed DDs but are > .50 calibre? Why are all shotguns (excepting the .410) not DDs? Why are there rifled “shotguns” that are not DDs?
Perhaps it does make sense to have a little more regulation around artillery, exploding artillery rounds, grenades, pipe bombs and the like. Very well, but then why not regulate these more like explosives are regulated; by quantity in inventory rather than as enumerated consumables?
Our goal here, I think, should be to begin the process of eroding the NFA; and, then by implication, making all gun control the object of skepticism.
And remember, they – the gun-controllers – are bringing this debate on themselves; we aren’t asking for something “new”.
I like the idea(s) here and in a rational world I think they’d work but you have to lay the groundwork for this first.
On top of that all the logic and factual argument in the world doesn’t matter until the general public demands that it be made central to the debate. Most people are, honestly, not capable of that. They’re too wrapped up in feelz and other problems that are much more immediate to them.
We’re right back in 2015/16 with the public at this point. Yeah, tons of new gun owners, true, but the same problems from the tail end of the Obama Administration are back and on steroids now. Little fish get little pans at the back of the stove. It sucks but it’s true.
And how useful are new gun owners in this? Probably not very. At best you’ve got a bunch of green recruits that need to be taught the value of various things and how those things interlock. Your average “I bought a gun in 2020/1 and now I’m a 2A supporter!” person is great and all but do you suppose that they actually understand the legal definitions of things and how if you were to use some of the Left’s language you’d end up banning revolvers under the guise of going after “assault weapons”? Probably not. Even if you assume these people are serious about the 2A at this point you still have to admit that they’re noobs.
Nothing wrong with being a noob. Everyone was the FNG at some point but they’re not exactly elite troops with a great understanding of… well, if we’re being honest, much of anything. They’re stuck at the start of the basics until someone helps them move forward.
I remember when I first started shooting (as an adult, about 12 years ago). It took a bit just to get the hang of caliber vs. millimeter vs. guage and simple cleaning procedures, let alone everything else.
Then again, my depth of knowledge grew a lot after I took those first steps. The latest crop of new gun owners might become really valuable allies, but probably not for a few years.
I would like to think that we can accelerate that timeline, hopefully getting it down to say… six months from now.
But that’s only part of the game. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying we shouldn’t make every effort to make it happen but we still need to realize the limitations even if we’re extremely effective.
“Simply make the arm-brace regulators defend the SBR regulation – from first principles – as worthy of any special treatment.”
Disability discrimination, full stop. Use the tools in the ADA to nail their hides to side of the barn…
While I like the idea of always having “canned” bills ready to go I am doubtful that 2022 will make much difference.
What needs to change is the zeitgeist when it come to [insert NFA item here] both inside and outside the gun community and POTG don’t do… well… basically anything on that front.
Data and facts are all well and good but they don’t work very well against an apparatus designed to sell the opposing point of view based on emotional manipulation (advertising principles).
You think data and facts matter? Look at the people still completely freaking out about the removal of mask mandates even though everyone with two firing neurons has known for more than a year that masks are next to useless because this has been studied to hell and back for decades vis a vis a respiratory virus. Argue with any of the Leftist cults ideas and you’ll get the same general response and not just from Leftists but from the people who feel their way through life. Again, masks. “BuT sUrGeOnz wEaRZ DeM!”. For the love of everything Holy, take a basic high school level biology class there Karen, you fucking dumbass.
Facts and logic don’t go very far these days. Facts and logic get you pilloried by the media while open and known lies and manipulation mean you can kill a ton of people through gross negligence and get a $5 million book deal about how wonderful your leadership is.
Meanwhile the flanking maneuvers on the 2A get bigger and few see that. As I’ve said before: Screw a “Chokepoint”, give these jackasses a CBDC and watch all your rights sublime off into fond memories nearly instantaneously.
*cult’s
In fact, the left wing media likes to mock the right for (in their view) overusing the terms “facts” and “logic,” as if these are silly, unimportant things that sophisticated people wouldn’t need to rely on.
I’m wearing a mask, in the bank, in the gunmshop, in the store. Anywhere there’s a camera I’ve got a mask and shades. That covid is deadly.
In NY state we waited until today (Wednesday) to end the masks. COVID strikes on Tuesdays, everyone knows that.
“Data and facts are all well and good but they don’t work very well against an apparatus designed to sell the opposing point of view based on emotional manipulation (advertising principles).”
I was looking for someone to mention this. Excellent article Jeremy, but you’re giving these people way too much credit. These aren’t sincere people. The Party of Science doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the data or even being consistent in their criticism of firearms. They don’t start with the data. They begin with their predetermined conclusion, and only use data that fits the narrative. You can’t reason with them. You can’t even shame them. Your voice doesn’t matter. They own the media, academia, and pop culture. The mindless zombie twitter horde has been trained to pounce on anything that challenges their perception of reality.
So that leaves us with what, Republicans fighting for us? They have to be the most cowardly group of politicians that has ever existed in the history of this country. Say what you will about Democrats, but at least they fight. They refuse to be shamed unlike Republicans.
I don’t mean to be a downer or anything. I really appreciate the optimism conveyed in the article.
And that should make it glaringly obvious that the entire point of the National Firearms Act of 1934 (and all subsequent laws which restrict firearm acquisition/ownership) is to create as many impediments as possible to firearm ownership.
We would also be wise to abandon the mindset that gun-grabbers object to firearm ownership on a rational basis. Rather, gun-grabbers object to firearm ownership for hysterical and evil reasons.
6 million is too l8w an estimate. According to the Bloomberg Law article quoted in the earlier TTAG article:
“Unofficial estimates suggest that there are between 10 and 40 million stabilizing braces and similar components in civilian hands in the U.S., according to the Congressional Research Service.”
“Unofficial estimates suggest that there are between 10 and 40 million stabilizing braces and similar components in civilian hands in the U.S., according to the Congressional Research Service.”
And not a serial number on any of them. That makes this an opportunity to exploit…
Ain’t gonna happen under a Democratic administration.
The suggestion I made in the article is to get a bill ready for after the 2022 elections:
OK so say everything goes our way in the 2022 elections.
You still have Biden or possibly Harris who would have to sign it.
This would not be doable until at least 2024.
Two thoughts:
(1) The article overlooks perhaps the best argument for removing SBR’s (and SBS’s) from the NFA: their inclusion in the NFA is a historical accident.
When FDR first proposed the NFA, it would have prohibited not only machine guns and silencers, but also handguns. To keep people from circumventing the handgun ban by essentially turning a rifle or shotgun into one by chopping the barrel and stock, they invented the legal concept of SBR/SBS, and added those to the NFA draft.
After getting legal opinions that an outright ban on such weapons would probably be ruled unconstitutional (both on Second Amendment and commerce clause grounds — remember, this was many years before the Supreme Court knuckled under to FDR), they changed the NFA from a ban to a “tax” of $200/gun (which in the Depression was a huge chunk of change, and effectively banned them for all but the very wealthy).
However, there was considerable resistance from Congress to effectively banning handguns, and so handguns were also dropped from the draft NFA . . . but nobody bothered to remove the addition of SBR/SBS, which were only included to keep the effective ban on handguns from being circumvented.
(2) While I appreciate the thought of modernizing the NFA, given the current administration and Congress, it has zero chance of passing, and proposing such legislation is simply a waste of time. Heck, we could not even get suppressors — which are sold over the counter in a lot of “gun control” countries — removed from the NFA when we had the White House and both houses of Congress.
More realistic angle is to hope that the Supreme Court gives us some sort of heightened scrutiny on 2A cases in the latest NYSR&PA case, and thereafter bring a test case on SBR’s that highlights the “historical accident” and logical flaws of the inclusion of SBR’s in the NFA.
But realistically, that’s also a longshot.
This.
Alos, Heller & MacDonald made handguns ‘legitimate’, undermining the premise of the SBR laws.
Interesting thought exercise, but they ain’t gonna buy it.
That said, I prefer traditional shotgun grips to pistol grips.
Long live SBRs
The NFA is designed to make it harder for immigrants and poor people to be armed – or it was. Chopped down rifles and shotguns were the “poor man’s” pistol (and in many countries still are). They were all the rage in the late 19th and early 20th century. But they had “foreign” names like “obrez” and “lupara” ergo wealthy, white, and native-born east coast elites said ban them. If ever there was a piece of legislation aimed at discriminating against an ethnic group, without naming it/them, it would have to be the NFA and Italians.
Karens (formerly known as “suffragettes”) and crap like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14,_1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
Is why we can’t have short things.
The irony is that the NFA was created to provide gainful employment for revenue agents who were otherwise without an excuse for their existence once prohibition was repealed. The justification was almost as fraudulent as the motivation. In spite of highly publicized incidents such as the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre, mobsters were not particularly likely to use machineguns, sawed off rifles or sawed off shotguns. Ironically, the Chicago police almost certainly were complicit in the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre.
Pipe dream
We couldn’t even get ONE of the past leftist anti-gun executive orders nullified in 2017-2018 when we had all of congress and the POTUS.
In fact we had an executive action in 2017 that wiped out VEPRs. People keep forgetting about that one.
Good luck but this is just more c0ck teasing.
“Karens (formerly known as “suffragettes”)”
Too funny 🙂
I think the Hearing Protection Act is the closest we’ve ever been to getting something off the NFA. The bill had a huge number of cosponsors, there was a Republican Congress and President, and the ATF itself said they wanted to stop committing resources to processing and enforcing silencer tax stamps. And yet, it got nowhere.
I think we need to introduce the HPA every year until everyone knows that silencers protect hearing for the single moms that have to fire indoors at a homicidal, abusive ex. They are so rarely used in crime that the over-eager enforcement agency sees them as a burden to their agency. They are an accessory that Europe deems then as a neighborly thing to own to reduce sound pollution. Once the whole nation has heard these talking points repeated 50 times and can recite them like an apathetic teenager, we might get somewhere.
where was the NRA during Trump and his republican congress……MIA
shame, very big shame
The entire reason SBR’s and SBS’s made it onto the list of NFA proscribed items was entirely due to Concealability. Accuracy, Muzzle Velocity, Terminal Performance were not Data driven in the decision. Concealability was the only factor for inclusion on the list. So law abiding Americans were denied ownership, except under capricious and arbitrary restrictions, because we could, and suggestively would, conceal said weapons. If that’s not a blatant infringement of the 2nd, then I don’t know what is. Millions of American Gun Owners were denied Due Process under the NFA, and all subsequent Gun Legislation. That’s a Fact that can never be denied.
Slimestein’s claim that pistol grips made firing from the hip easier, was completely BS, and is not supported by any study of body mechanics. Point of unimpeachable fact, pistol grips actually make it harder to shoot from the hip, as the hand and wrist must assume an unnatural angle in using such grips.
I’m on the side of open rebellion. This BS will never be legislated away, because of the cancer that has eaten it’s way through all three branches of our government. It is beyond repair, and I firmly believe the sooner we accept that, the sooner we fix it.
The entire 1934 National Firearms Act is unconstitutional. But it was never challenged in Court so the Government decided silence as permission to keep on infringing.
Same goes for every gun control Law since.
This is a daydream. It has no support in Congress or the Nation at large.
To restore the Constitution as the law of the land will require nothing short of a revolutionary war. And even then it is uncertain which camp would win.
One thing is clear. The Communists are winning on all fronts. The military has now fallen to communist indoctrination.
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