Bump Fire Stocks Legislation
The U.S. National Rifle Association (NRA) just caved in on the issue of fast-firing semi-autos. On Thursday, they issued a public statement that encouraged bump fire stocks legislation. It said in part:
“In the aftermath of the evil and senseless attack in Las Vegas…”[lots deleted]
“…Despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law. The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations…”
This sort of panicked wholesale capitulation to the mainstream media’s demands will surely cause a cascade of executive orders and/or Federal legislation.
My Objections
I have some huge objections to the NRA President’s capitulation letter, to wit:
1.) NRA President Wayne LaPierre apparently did not first consult the full NRA Board of Directors. And he doesn’t speak for the entire membership.
2.) The statement was so loosely worded that it could include a plethora of parts and accessories. The problem is this vague phrase “…to function like fully-automatic rifles…” “Like?” What do you mean by the word “like”, Wayne? Do you mean firing more than once with with each function (pull or release) of the trigger? (That is the current legal definition of a machinegun.) Do you mean capable of firing more than once or twice per second? Or do you mean a semi-auto that “sounds scary”? Do you mean firing semi-automatically from a linked belt or from a magazine of substantial capacity? Your vague statement could be construed to include not just bump fire stocks but also match grade (light) triggers, binary triggers, magazines over 20 round capacity, pants belt loops, or even rubber bands!
3.) They had the opportunity to confront the horribly open-ended wording of Senator Feinstein’s bill, but they did not. (Her bill –not yet assigned a number–is an outright ban, with no Grandfather Clause, and has no exceptions. It would cause a Federal “taking” of private property, with no compensation for those affected by the proposed legislation. This sort of taking flies in the face of a long-standing tenet of American jurisprudence. You can’t just take someone’s property without compensation.)
4.) The wording of the NRA statement was nearly as vague as Feinstein’s draft ban legislation!
5.) The NRA missed a huge opportunity to insist that the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934’s machinegun registry be re-opened. By re-opening the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Records (NFRTR) they could solve a number of chronic problems. This would allow amnesty registration (with a $200 per-item tax) on any contraband full autos, including military veterans’ “dufflebag bring-backs.” If need be, this amnesty could include bump fire stocks, if they are erroneously re-classified as “machineguns”.) However, by leaving the error-ridden NFA registry closed it will leave hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens in legal limbo. And assuming that bumpfire stocks become banned, then additional tens or even hundreds of thousands more gun owners will become “unprosecuted felons.” What is really needed is a blanket NFA registration amnesty lasting 18 to 24 months. Better yet, the Hughes Amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 should also be rescinded. That would leave the machinegun registry open as it should be, to new manufacture and importation.
6.) The NRA didn’t even wait long enough for an ATF forensic report which would reveal whether or not simple “bump fire” was employed, or if Stephen Paddock had actually illegally converted one or more of the ARs he used to true full auto fire.
7.) The NRA leadership has repeatedly promised “no compromise” on the Second Amendment. Well, you’ve just compromised on a grand scale. You’ve just capitulated to the gun grabbers. The leftists in Congress will now smell blood in the water, and attempt to pass sweeping civilian disarmament legislation.
8.) History has repeatedly shown that legislated or dictated bans and freezes don’t work. Especially when a ban infringes on a God-Given right.
In my opinion, the NRA Board of Directors should rescind the letter and remove Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox from the organization, immediately!
Speak Out!
Please contact the NRA to make your opinion known, visit their web page, or phone: (800) 672-3888.
To contact your Congressman, call (202) 224-3121
To write your Senator:
The Honorable _________________
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510
To write your Representative:
The Honorable _________________
United States House of Representatives
Washington DC 20515
To find out who your Representative is, enter your zip code in the search function at: http://www.house.gov/writerep/
To contact the President:
President _________________
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
(202) 456-1111 (phone)
president@whitehouse.gov
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilence”
Please let your voices be heard! – JWR
I have lost all confidence in the NRA over this. Bumpstocks are stupid. I have fired them before, you can’t hit jack crap with them. Those folks are lucky in LV that the shooter wasn’t using aimed semi auto fire, the number of kills would have been much higher.
The real problem here isn’t Bumpstocks, semi auto, or the gun, it was the sick man behind the trigger. Could have killed just as many with a Peterbuilt…better start outlawing semi trucks….
I agree! As a licensed private pilot and airplane owner, Stephen Paddock could have killed MANY MORE than 58 people if he had simply crash-landed (gear-up) a low-wing twin engine plane into the crowd. It would not have taken exceptional skill as a pilot to direct a plane into a crowd of 22,000 people standing in a large field. If he had taken the step of packing a plane with explosives, then the death toll would be even higher.
I agree, Bumpstocks make for inefficient shooting and probably saved a lot of lives. Had he taken his time and aimed, at individuals or groups, for nine minutes, the fatalities would have been much greater.
Typical government reaction, in their haste to do something, they make killers more efficient.
We’re probably going to find that a few of the fatalities, and wounded, have no gunshot wounds, but were trampled, or run over by fleeing or responding vehicles. Kind of like Matthew Bracken’s novel with the stadium attack, where the shooter used a few rounds to stampede the crowd, causing hundreds of casualties.
Evil will always find a way, airliners and box cutters, Kool-Aid and cyanide, cargo trucks, knives, fertilizer explosives, cars, etc… Mass murder is already against the law, but that doesn’t seem to stop these folks…
Agree that bumpstocks are worthless. Stupid novelty items that render proper shooting technique impossible. I’m generally of the opinion that those utilizing them are braggarts, mall ninjas, and fanboys. That said, it’s not the .govs right to tell braggarts, mall ninjas, and fanboys how to (ineffectively) defend themselves. They’ve proven time and time again what happens when you give them an inch…..
If you look at how long he was firing and the number killed he could have done far higher numbers with a bolt action or even a single shot like a Ruger No 1.
I think the NRA would give all member’s names over to the government if asked to do so. Not a member.
The NRA has to support gun control.
If we did away with all the egregious gun regulations, they would be a redundant operation.
My right to defend myself is not NRA-given, government-given; it is God-given. What God has given, man cannot take away. The Las Vegas shooter was not acting in self-defense, he was an attacker. In the hysteria to prevent attackers, gun control proposals only affect those who act in self-defense.
Amen
The NRA is a pragmatic political organization that will not stand firm on the 2nd Amendment if caving in a smidge at a time will help them keep power. The founding fathers advocated the use of cutting edge weapons and today would be shocked at what compromises to the 2nd have done to WeThe People. Dropped the NRA decades ago…
Gun Owners of America sent an action alert to its members this morning to contact reps and senators to fight anti bump stock action. I like GOA. Not as big or showy as NRA but always on course, direct to the point, and not always asking for money. $20 per year gets all benefits. I am also a member of NRA.
Over the years, I have shot tens of thousands of rounds from rapid fire weapons:
M85 MG (50BMG), M60D MG (7.62x51mm), M16A1 (5.56x45mm), & MAC-10 (.45 ACP) [Private].
The U.S. Military has a long logistical supply chain: ships, aircraft, landing craft, trucks, etc., to make sure that the troops have all the ammo they need.
I do not own or recommend any kind of automatic, bumpfire, or pistol brace stock firearm.
As a private citizen, I simply don’t have the economic and logistical ability to have them.
When things get tough, private citizens are going to need to make every shot count.
In the past nine years, we have seen high costs and scarcity for ammo.
One of the reasons there were probably no police sharpshooters at the Las Vegas mass shooting was due to the high price of ammo, a lot of LE departments have allowed that capability to diminish.
The NRA is about firearm safety and proficiency, so they have no use for any kind of rapid fire device, they are more into safe, slow, effective fire.
Years ago, a firearms writer, who believes that all semi-autos should be banned, almost got elected to the NRA board.
There is a certain minority within the NRA who feel the same.
Which is why I will never buy a lifetime membership, at a certain point, it may change through democracy into an advocate for more gun control, that I no longer want to associate with.
For the past eighty years, gun rights activists have been forced into compromise, after compromise, all in the name of a safer society.
When was the last time that the gun grabbers compromised or gave in on anything.
NO MORE COMPROMISE!!!
NO MORE GUN CONTROL!!!
If someone wants to own all these rapid fire devices, let them, in their pursuit of happiness…
The outcome of the last election mandated goals to secure the borders, repeal the burden on the middle class of ObamaCare, and reduce spending, but, what we are probably going to get in 2017 is just more feel good gun control… I can see the politicians now, all slapping themselves on the back, telling everyone that they did something to solved this problem…
Do you feel safer now because of political actions of the past eighty years?
I am of the opinion that we should strive for complete deregulation of all weapons- but that is tempered with the belief that people generally can only handle freedom responsibly up to a point (which varies based on the individual).
In an ideal world, those people who recognized their personal inability to handle certain degrees of freedom would exercise self-restraint. The world not being ideal, the choice we must make as citizens is whether the risks associated with greater liberty outweigh the risks associated with greater greater government control.
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
Someone recently said of the Vegas Shooting that the only way to prevent it via legislation would be the implementation of a police state. I agree- and further, I think that “police state” will start to impact other areas of life, not just self defense.
“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Google has started censoring searches; that there is a perceived need for restricted access to information should be alarming to all. What saddens me about Google’s decision is that they are perfectly happy to allow unrestricted access to information and ideas that are highly damaging (obscene).
As a young man, it seems to me that society’s fathers exercise little control over the information content that their families absorb. Not that I blame fathers- that’s just what I see; other entities (public schools, television, the Internet, etc) seem to have taken over the parental duty of education.
Education itself arguably has a spiritual component; public education’s attempt to secularize it has been disastrous.
The NRA are doing what they did in 1934, 1968, 1994 etc. We’ll give up a little bit of our rights to keep them happy and they well see that we’re the good guys and stop coming after our guns. When’s the next vote for nra board of directors there’s going to be some new names up. Never, Never, Never give up ANY rights for ANY reason, I’m in the UK this I know first hand.
Benjamin Franklin had it right “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” (In a letter written by Franklin in 1755 on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor.)
The NRA: She ain’t what she used to be.
NRA lobbyists make very good money. They are just another mechanism to make money for a few, at the expense, or threat of expense to all gun owners and patriots.
How many years does it take to make the Second Amendment clear and understood, definitve? Still stuck on stupid.
Bump stocks today, tomorrow? They will never stop pushing. This maleable government is criminal, we all know it. The NRA plays a role well, wish it would just knock em out and call it a “RIGHT”.
Don’t be distracted by the MSM,who don’t know what end of the tube the round comes out of. A bump-fire from the prone at a downward angle? Maybe but I doubt it. That was belt fed medium MG firing from at least 3 locations simultaneously plus at least two others attacking two other cadino/hotels and shooting victims in the parking lots. This was a FALSE FLAG/COVERUP. The patsy who it is being pinned on was not physically capable of this act(he would of passed out or had a heart attack). Follow the actual evidence not what they want to feed you,think for yourself and apply the rules of logic and reasoning to get the truth.
The NRA is saying “let the ATF make the decision.” NRA knows that the ATF twice under the Obama administration ruled that bump devices were legal in that they did not illegally convert the firearm to full auto status. ATF further noted that the device was less important than the technique, which cannot be regulated.
By moving the decision to the ATF, NRA is very effectively putting ATF in a difficult position. ATF will either uphold their ruling that the devices are legal and it is up to congress to write a law limiting their sale. Or ATF will have to explain that it is a technique not the device.
It is also possible that ATF will have to admit that their previous ruling was in error, I doubt that this is likely, given that it occurred under the Obama “common sense gun laws” administration.
It is a wonderful political strategy.