SCOTUS refuses bump stock case

In a vacuum, I support the bump stock ban.....however we are know it's just another step down the dark path.
 
The ban stands: good decision. Bump stocks: bad decision (Las Vegas is on the line). What's wrong? The bump stocks should not have been approved in the first place, nor invented and sold in the first place. "Sometimes illegal, always wrong" comes to mind. This has been my position since I first discovered they existed from news of the LV massacre.

Some people cut the string hanging from their knit sweater, others are content to keep trying to pull it I suppose.
 
Honestly, I doubt that a great number of those who have been elected to the current House of Representatives has ever read the constitution from beginning to end, so I doubt they understand their powers, the executive powers, the legislative powers, and the limits and checks thereon.

They, and many others not in gov’t including “gun owners”, may have read the Constitution but don’t abide by it in word or deed.
 
Some people cut the string hanging from their knit sweater, others are content to keep trying to pull it I suppose.

And I suppose that this comment is worth addressing, neverthless that it was posed as a throwaway.

Some historical context: I've been officially a part of the U.S. gun industry since 1970. That's NSGA show then the appearance of the SHOT show; plus NRA show; plus police and military shows. While I was active which was 1970 to 2000 there was a self-regulating nature to the industry. As an example I give my friends at what was called Assault Systems, so-called because they made/make carrying cases for assault rifles from ballistic nylon.

The trade shows banned the use of the word 'assault' or 'combat' outright in the 1980s and they became Shooting Systems so that they could continue to display their wares at SHOT and NRA. Today their name is different still.

So to catch you up, in 2015 I took my new wife to SHOT to explore opportunities for my gunleather range, because prior I was a gunleather designer but had not been a maker under my own name. I'll be honest: I was offended by what I saw. Suddenly silencers are legal? Assault rifles proliferated. But I didn't know about bump stocks there; I'd have had a few words to say to the exhibitor if I had.

Then I return from Vegas in 2015 and in 2017 I find out from the news of the massacre there about bump stocks. Whose stupid idea was this, to allow these to be in trade shows and sold to the public when even the words 'assault' and 'combat' were prohibited there?

We don't want to be regulated by outsiders, so many a professional association regulates itself to prevent that. I'm offended that the industry, and its consumers, ever tolerated bump stocks. And I say that as a professional in the gun industry who's been shooting since 1963 then joined NRA in '67 to shoot .22 rifle and was in PPC in 1968-70; and at the formation of IPSC in 1976 and helped found the Bianchi Cup tournament in 1979 that still operates today (I visited in 2010).

I'm don't reckon I'll ever stop 'picking at' this particular thread; haven't forgiven my country or my countrymen for going so far down that particular slipper slope. Have some self control.
 
Problem for me as a lawyer is that the BATFE interpreted the statute to allow bumpstocks the first time it considered the applicability of the NFA machine gun statute -- and the opposite way the second time it considered the same statute.

How is a citizen supposed to know what a statute means when the responsible government agency reverses its own interpretation.
 
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Wow. Many of you are people who’s opinions I respect, albeit differ with.
The supreme court bump stock piece is interesting, to me. I am always interested in what makes their minds up regarding taking a case or not.
I am also firmly in the camp of “the people should be as well or better armed than their government.”
Yes, I mean artillery, tanks, jets, full autos...
 
IN MY OPINION

and that ought to eliminate half of the readers, If you pull the trigger once and the magazine empties as cycled per design, you are full auto. You can split hairs with a razor blade in the mirror if you want. I don't need to and I ain't gonna cry about it. Did Napoleon say: { he who has saved a nation has broken no law }? Pilot Major Blackthorn said: { A subject has not committed treason against his lord, if he wins. } Well if you are SO Sensitive about your RIGHTS and you are SO Threatened, then prove it by YOUR sacrifice, not MINE. I will not follow, I will not lead, nor will I get out of the way of a Crack Pot over NOTHING SERIOUS. WA, WA, Wa.
 
.... While I was active which was 1970 to 2000 there was a self-regulating nature to the industry. .........

The trade shows banned the use of the word 'assault' or 'combat' outright in the 1980s ......

So to catch you up, in 2015 I took my new wife to SHOT ..... I'll be honest: I was offended by what I saw. Suddenly silencers are legal? Assault rifles proliferated. But I didn't know about bump stocks there; I'd have had a few words to say to the exhibitor if I had.

We don't want to be regulated by outsiders, so many a professional association regulates itself to prevent that. I'm offended that the industry, and its consumers, ever tolerated bump stocks. And I say that as a professional in the gun industry who's been shooting since 1963 then joined NRA in '67 to shoot .22 rifle and was in PPC in 1968-70; and at the formation of IPSC in 1976 and helped found the Bianchi Cup tournament in 1979 that still operates today (I visited in 2010).

I'm don't reckon I'll ever stop 'picking at' this particular thread; haven't forgiven my country or my countrymen for going so far down that particular slipper slope. Have some self control.

I agree with quite a bit of what you said about self regulation. During my professional career, we generally had to visit restricted entry exhibitions to see certain products germane to our mission.

However, you definitely did NOT see masses of actual assault rifles. You've bought into the deceptive labeling of a legitimate product. This is similar to believing that if you slapped sponsor decals on the family ride, you'd have a race car.

BTW, silencers have always been legal, just highly regulated. In many countries they're regarded in the same way as automotive mufflers and can be purchased pretty much in the same manner.
 
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I agree with quite a bit of what you said about self regulation. During my professional career, we generally had to visit restricted entry exhibitions to see certain products germane to our mission.

However, you definitely did NOT see masses of actual assault rifles. You've bought into the deceptive labeling of a legitimate product. This is similar to believing that if you slapped sponsor decals on the family ride, you'd have a race car.

BTW, silencers have always been legal, just highly regulated. In many countries they're regarded in the same way as automotive mufflers and can be purchased pretty much in the same manner.

Part of the problem is who uses which definition of some of the terms, like "assault rifle" or "assault weapon". If the federal legislative branch or a particular state legislates the definition, then that becomes the law of the land until such time as the law is repealed, declared unconstitutional, "sunsets" or is changed.

I remember when my own state of residence (CA) was just beginning to talk about creating the first assault weapon law. I saw what appeared to be the writing on the wall, and along with some of the other guys (LE), decided to order an AR.

Now, up until that time I had no interest in owning an AR. I got my fill of shooting them at work, but when some politicians started talking about passing a law to restrict ownership, my younger self took a bit of umbrage and decided it was time to buy one.

I dutifully registered it with the state under the then new assault weapon law when the law was enacted and registration was required. Still have it, but I haven't shot it in several years. (Still had ample opportunity to shoot agency weapons as part of my responsibility of being a rifle instructor and armorer. :) )

In recent years I rather regret not having taking the opportunity several years ago to have turned mine into a couple of nice lever rifles/carbines.
 
My crackehead neighbor had one, now he doesn't, and I am glad he doesn't, but did not want it this way.
 
Voters like me did not vote for these people. Voters who moved here from northeast states (and I know a number of them, so I know that many have moved here either for job or to retire to a lower cost of living) and voters who are the "never Trump" crowd surely voted for this mess. Sadly, too many Republicans stayed away from the polls, either out of apathy, or because the Virginia GOP did not bother to contest races (a huge problem in Virginia), or perhaps they did not care for Trump. But is was not voters just like me.

Just keep firmly in mind that it was President Trump who enacted the ban on bump stocks, it's his BATF that is enforcing it, and his Justice Department that is defending the decision in the courts. You can rail about the "Never Trumpers" all you want, but this is his baby.
 
The problem I see with the bump stock ban is the way the regulation was interpreted to define a bump stock as a machine gun. Bump fire is easily done with just your finger and holding the firearm correctly. So... what happens when the next president figures that out? Will all semi autos be redefined as machine guns? The support of the bump stock ban by so many gun owners baffles me. What part of "shall not be infringed " do they not understand?
 
Yes it is :-). Anyone who thought a bump stock was a good idea because it 'cleverly' got around a legitimate law that regulated automatic firing (and equally 'cleverly' ignored the physics that need an open bolt to cool the barrel -- which is why the Vegas shooter had so many jammed rifles at the scene) instead had a bad idea. Bad bad bad bad and hundreds of the dead and the wounded to prove it. Three cheers for the President and for the Supreme Court.
Oh. I get it now.
It is the bumpstock.
Not the screwball who committed the crime.
Nope. Not him. It was the plastic thing that did it.
 
The bumpstock controversy illustrates a fundamental big-picture problem - the unconstitutional 4th branch of government, the regulatory bureaucracies.

The Constitution expressly reserves the law making power to the legislature. But we have bureaucracies creating law out of thin air. Except they call them regulations rather than laws.

However, I can be arrested, convicted of a crime, fined, imprisoned, or even shot if I resist, for disobeying a 'regulation' that was never voted for by my elected representatives nor signed into law by the president.

The lawyers here probably know the legal principle I am trying to describe, but there used to be a time where citizens were deemed to have the right to know exactly, with no ambiguity, what was illegal. Everything is legal unless specifically and unambiguously made illegal by our elected representatives in the legislature by passing laws in the Constitutionally proscribed manner.

It was a perfectly valid defense for a citizen, arrested for violating a vaguely written law, to claim the law was unjust. And judges upheld that defense.

Now we have unelected bureaucrats creating laws, oops I mean regulations, redefining poorly written laws, complete with quite onerous criminal penalties, and they themselves are often poorly and vaguely written.
 
Some historical context: I've been officially a part of the U.S. gun industry since 1970. That's NSGA show then the appearance of the SHOT show; plus NRA show; plus police and military shows. While I was active which was 1970 to 2000 there was a self-regulating nature to the industry. As an example I give my friends at what was called Assault Systems, so-called because they made/make carrying cases for assault rifles from ballistic nylon.

The trade shows banned the use of the word 'assault' or 'combat' outright in the 1980s and they became Shooting Systems so that they could continue to display their wares at SHOT and NRA. Today their name is different still.


So should Smith & Wesson or the collectors of their fine products refrain from referring to the Model 15, 18 and 19 by their original model names?
 
Yes it is :-). Anyone who thought a bump stock was a good idea because it 'cleverly' got around a legitimate law that regulated automatic firing (and equally 'cleverly' ignored the physics that need an open bolt to cool the barrel -- which is why the Vegas shooter had so many jammed rifles at the scene) instead had a bad idea. Bad bad bad bad and hundreds of the dead and the wounded to prove it. Three cheers for the President and for the Supreme Court.
Bump stocks were and are a good idea. Vegas- he did not use a "bump Stock" listen to the video, time it and compare it to belt fed firearms. Have you wondered why the FBI spent 2-3 weeks trying to locate every projectile? It was never proved that he used a bump stock, or that he even did the firing, unless you believe everything the FBI says. No one has committed a crime with a bump stock, and as stated earlier, it is not a federal law, as stated by Watchdog it is a revised rule. SCOTUS needs to hear the cases, as Bushmaster1313 stated BATF decided to change their review of the same statute. As for " bump firing" anyone can go on you tube to see how to do it with a belt loop and a semiauto. Since down under you are not allowed to own semi autos, do you think they should ban all firearms, which would stop all "crime" Be Safe,
 
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I don't have any motivation or desire to buy a bump stock. I prefer to challenge myself with putting all the rounds inside a canning jar ring size circle and increase the distance.

I will not be judgmental on other gun owners, I will support them 100%. If we let ourselves to be split into groups we will pay the price as a whole.

A huge granite boulder can be reduced to drive way stones by chipping off a little piece at a time.
 

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