The Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced today that it has begun the process of promulgating a federal regulation interpreting the definition of “machinegun” under federal law to clarify whether certain bump stock devices fall within that definition.
“The Department of Justice has the duty to enforce our laws, protect our rights, and keep the American people safe,” Attorney General Sessions said. “Possessing firearm parts that are used exclusively in converting a weapon into a machine gun is illegal, except for certain limited circumstances. Today we begin the process of determining whether or not bump stocks are covered by this prohibition. We will go through the regulatory process that is required by law and we will be attentive to input from the public. This Department is serious about firearms offenses, as shown by the dramatic increase in firearms prosecutions this year. The regulatory clarification we begin today will help us to continue to protect the American people by carrying out the laws duly enacted by our representatives in Congress.”
The ATF shouldn’t make any laws, ever. The fact that they have for decades doesn’t change that.
Those proposed laws went exactly nowhere. That’s where it should have ended at the federal level.
I’m again struck my the irony that your username is “FromMyColdDeadHands”, yet you’re perfectly willing to surrender pieces of the 2nd Amendment you don’t personally find important.
Congress writes legislation that the POTUS signs and the executive branch turns into codes and regulations. That is nothing new.
Like I’ve said before. Show me the posts where the when the ATF letter came out on bump stocks that this was praised as some huge water shed moment on gun rights. We didn’t have bump stocks, retards had bump stocks, and we’ll probably not have bump stocks again. This was not some major technological or gun rights expanding innovation or cause. After two decades of explaining about how ARs are not machine guns, these things blurred that line. It held up national reciprocity and made people wonder about ARs as machine guns again. All so retards can go out and play short-bus Rambo. Feel free to go start BumpStockAR.net. I’d like to keep this site a bit out of the shallow end of the AR pool.
In this case Congress didn’t write the law, POTUS didn’t sign the law, but yet it may still become law because some bureaucrat thinks it’s a good idea. This idea completely undermines our entire system of government.
Sarcastic remarks don’t detract from my point- you’re willing to sell out a portion of your rights that you don’t deem important. This is the EXACT SAME attitude fudds have towards AR’s. Just because you think they’re stupid, and by most accounts they are, doesn’t mean we should willingly cede another minute right to the federal government.
I think you were expecting too much from a billionaire democrat from NYC with his own bodyguard… now we’ll either get the BATFE to psudeo-redefine what a machine gun is (“rate of fire enhancer”, Oh-boy!) or they’ll come to the same (and correct) conclusion that the technical branch did last time.
I would love to see some real shock and awe, small .gov, pro 2A, type action… BUT… I would settle for one or two really good offense plays that indicated a team capable of actually playing offense. I would probably think I had died and gone to heaven if the Republicans actually played good offense and enjoyed it to the point they adopted it as a team plan.
Gorsuch replaced Scalia.
Kennedy is leaving.
Ginsberg is being retrofitted with robotics such that we will never actually see her die. She will be the first fully functioning device that marks the Singularity and unfortunately eternal Liberalism on the SCOTUS.
ATF gets to decide what a machinegun is for the same reason DEA gets to decide if a drug has accepted medical use…Because the National Resources Defense Council challenged the EPA over the Clean Air Act and Chevron appealed to SCOTUS
