The Slippery Slope: Proposed ATF Rule Redefining “Machinegun”
The ATF recently published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on bumpfire stocks, redefining them as “machineguns.” This NPRM is worse than I had anticipated This is in part because the new rule has no Grandfather Clause. By the ATF’s own estimates there are more than 350,000 American bumpfire stocks (worth about $96 million) already in circulation. The proposed rule would declare these all contraband unregistered machineguns, with no compensation to their owners, and no method provided to pay the $200 tax to register them. (Because of the FOPA Hughes Amendment machinegun freeze of 1986.) Therefore, owners would be required …