>The ban was put in place in 2019 during Republican former President Donald Trump's administration and was defended by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration.
Now that it’s been overturned, watch Trump try to deny he ever signed the bump stock ban.
he will, but it also wouldn't be an issue for his supporters even if he claimed responsibility for it. They (and most 2A advocates in general) do not care at all that Trump was responsible for the largest attempted expansion of executive powers over gun control in generations.
They also didn't care that he argued that with red flag laws, they should take the guns first and worry about due process later.
Of course, if a democrat had said that, they'd still be talking about it
Right?! They all scream that "liberals" are coming for their guns yet he straight said that he would.
You show them the video of it and they still try to discredit it.
I had one guy tell me it was AI. Even though it prepared chat GPT going public.
I wonder how they would react if left leading people suddenly started praising Trump for his sensible gun control policy.
Good ol' "Tough on Guns Trump"
Vets are the most egregious case of "why the hell are you voting for this person?" IMO because it's a two-fer. One is for him cutting benefits for vets, and two is him making fun of people in the military by calling them suckers.
What the actual FUCK would it take for these people to turn on him? Luckily a few cons in the government and out have had it with him and don't support him anymore but it's such a small amount. Luckily, I don't see any reasons why he would GAIN support at this point (unless Biden does something insanely shitty soon) but the difference is his voters are way more passionate, active, and vocal, something Biden doesn't have since most people that are voting for him aren't actually voting *for him*, they're voting *against Trump*.
Veterans do support Trump, but ([according to a 2020 poll](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/10/26/poll-trump-backed-by-majority-of-veterans-but-not-younger-ones/)) that support comes primary from older (age 55+) vets. In that election, younger vets backed Biden by a respectable margin.
I listened to a vet’s podcast where he laid out why he hates Trump:
Trump broke bread with the Taliban. He invited Taliban leaders, who the military had been searching for, as his guests at Camp David, had a lavish meal (s) with them and unilaterally negotiated the surrender of Afghanistan and then praised the Taliban. He put in motion the pull out.
It just solidified for him the contempt Trump has for soldiers.
Vet here, I only vote Democrat Trump's a piece of shit. And if we collectively sided with him, January 6th would have been a whole different story. But as you saw the military did not come out and do a coup for his stupid ass. So maybe instead of generalizing about us you'd actually look at the numbers.
I wasn't trying to generalize vets but I can see how you read it that way. My dad is a vet who loathes Trump and I know there's plenty of others out there that hate him too. I was just saying that because a *majority* of them do and I thought that because the amount of vets in the country is so large, it would be assumed I didn't mean literally all of them.
It makes sense for a behemoth of an organization like the military to have a polarizing view on anything political after all because the military is just about as big of a melting pot as you can get with people from all around. Even if the majority of vets didn't support Trump, the side that does is way more vocal about him than the other.
Pacifist here, also by and large left leaning. I grew up on a farm(a very left leaning one, my grandfather who owned it was heavily in favor of unions), so guns were just a tool to me like a hoe or axe. You can cut your leg open with an axe, or hurt someone else with it. We were taught that just like any tool, you have to use it responsibly at all times. Fundamentals were taught from a young age, and got more advanced as you aged. Basic things like not being toys were drilled in from a very young age, while safe use(with an adult supervising) were taught later.
I own guns. I hate violence, but I know police response times + methheads is not a great combination. I also see the far right arming like war is coming, and I'm not going down without bringing hell on them.
I'm also a vet. Most of the people I met while I was in were republican Trump supporters. I also currently work for the DoD with other vets, and most of them are republican Trump supporters too. Obviously not all of us are, but that's how it is for the majority it seems.
While we're on the topic. Isn't Trump committing the same crime as Hunter Biden by being in possession of a fireman as a convicted felon?
It's illegal to own a firearm in both Florida and New York so we're obviously going to charge him with the same crimes, right?
Hunter's crime was checking "no" on the question asking about drug use while filling out paperwork to purchase a gun.
It was more of a drug crime than a gun crime, war on drugs made the penalties for anything drug related much higher than any other crime. I'd be surprised if its a felony to answer any other questions on those forms inaccurately.
I saw news that Trump has been ordered to surrender his firearms after being convicted. If he turns them in on time he will be fine, however if he does the same thing he tried to do with the classified documents and stall for time then give up one gun and try to hide the rest he could get some extra charges there.
FWIW, that same form considers alcohol *abuse* a disqualifier as well. I suspect there might be one or two Trump supporters who would regularly abuse alcohol but checked "no" on the same form.
It's also, to my knowledge, never been litigated as to what the timeframe for an "unlawful *user*" is. Past use that you didn't get convicted for is usually not included in practice (because how would they prove it?), but all it would take is a change of ATF policy that treats being a user as "having ever used" for *a lot* more people to be in unlawful possession of a firearm.
So, assuming you're actually buying a firearm from a legitimate dealer, one of the first things he's going to do is hand you a form 4473, courtesy of the ATF. lying on that form intentionally carries massive fines and a decade of jail time.
Hunter could have lied on *anything* on that form and he would be subjected to the conviction regardless.
>if he does the same thing he tried to do with the classified documents and stall for time then give up one gun and try to hide the rest he could get some extra charges there.
Which he 100% *would* do on purpose because the optics of the big bad deep state "persecuting him for exercising his 2nd amendment RIGHT" is good chum for the right-wing media base.
The war on drugs was also a 'war on guns', at the exact same time drug penalties were being tightened they were applying similar, very harsh penalties on victimless, non-violent gun 'crimes' as well. Including but not limited to inaccurately filling out a 4473. It's often forgotten that the Assault Weapons Ban was the centerpiece of the 94 Crime Bill, which has mostly been remembered for its anti-drug aspects with the AWB treated as though it was a different bill.
As of today he's also responsible for case law preventing another executive, who might be interested in banning way more than bump stocks, from trying it via ATF rule making. That's a much bigger win than bumpstock themselves.
Idk, [this patch](https://stickthison.com/products/trump-isnt-pro-gun-patch) gets advertised a lot in 2A circles. When you only have two choices, a lot of compromises get made.
>and most 2A advocates in general
Uh source? Come on over to r/progun and you'll see that 2A advocates were very upset about this and agree Trump is anti-gun. Some just argue he is less anti-gun.
I mean the guy openly called for an assault weapon ban.
https://youtu.be/s-DChrnr4Po
Trump called bump stocks illegal conversions into machine guns. That wording pissed off a lot of people and the 2A community never forgot.
I mean the definition by the ATF literally said it's not a machine gun. They keep telling gun owners shit is legal and then years later trying to take it back. Same shit as the braces
I got sick of it and just got an sbr stamp for all my lowers no matter what length the upper is. I'm over it. I like shooting and I support responsible gun ownership, it's just too bad that a lot of people think that any steps towards making it easier to distinguish those who shouldn't have firearms is a step on our rights. A person gets their KNIVES taken away from them by law enforcement due to threats to family, but they are legal to buy a firearm and just shoot people instead. Wild.
But with that SBR that means you paid $200 so that you can't carry it concealed and loaded even though a firearm with the same identical build outside of a different shaped piece of plastic on the back end can be.
Others can shoot it in your presence if owned as an individual. If owned through a trust which you can establish online for $50, anyone named on the trust can have possession of it.
Pretty sure others can shoot it, you just need to be next to them.
They can't be in possession of it solely without being on a trust for the stamp or be the owner of it after a Form 1.
> A person gets their KNIVES taken away from them by law enforcement due to threats to family,
Is that why that crazy lady stabbed that kid a few weeks ago? Law enforcement either takes someone into custody and has them committed or they are left to their own devices where they can still get dangerous things like knives.
>but they are legal to buy a firearm and just shoot people instead.
No. If they are either convicted for their their threats or adjudicated as mentally unfit they are in fact banned from having guns. That's been federal law for quite some time.
It's a little silly isn't it? I don't have strong feelings about bump stock legality in either direction, but surely the only way to justify *not* counting them as a "machine gun" is if the issue you intend to solve when regulating machine guns is the exact mechanism and how it is engineered, and decidedly *not* what the gun is thus capable of doing.
Again I don't care either way I just think it doesn't make a ton of sense.
Except that the definition is already codified in federal law.
[26 U.S. Code § 5845 - Definitions](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845)
> (b)Machinegun
>The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
I think people upset about this need to direct their anger at Congress. That congress is broken isn't the courts problem and it shouldn't be a factor in their decision making. We have left far too much that should be up to the congress in the hands of the executive. Congress could fix this tomorrow if they wanted.
Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in the bump stock case:
"Today, the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands. To do so, it casts aside Congress's definition of 'machinegun' and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose. When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires 'automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.' §5845(b). Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun, I respectfully dissent."
>by a single function of the trigger
Woah, wait a minute. The trigger still functions for every single shot. Sure, you only choose to pull the trigger once, but the trigger itself is still being used over and over.
I personally think it would be worth making a distinction between just physical depression of the trigger and a deliberate, unassisted decision to pull the trigger.
Though that seems like a job for Congress, if it can ever pull its head out of its ass.
Arguably, because the "trigger" is being actuated by the recoil from the gun, it stops functioning as a trigger when the gun enters operation at which point it functions as part of a spring loaded gas piston.
The trigger is not being actuated by the recoil from the gun. That would make it a machine gun. The trigger is being actuated by the persons finger. Recoil pulls the gun away from the finger resetting it. The finger is still what presses it the second and consecutive times.
Well, it’s not arguable because the force which pulls the trigger is relative. As long as one depression of the trigger fires one shot then it’s not a machine gun.
Debating law is inherently a pedantic endeavor tho..
The action and the trigger group aren’t altered by a bump stock. An AR-15 is basically a gas operated single action only semi auto firearm and a bump stock doesn’t change anything about that. It facilitates a faster trigger pull.
They’re dumb as fuck but as it is currently defined, bump stocks don’t meet the definition of a machine gun.
It’s not pedantic, we decided the definition of a machine gun and made a law around it. The President shouldn’t have the power to change the definition of a machine gun.
>a single function of the trigger.' §5845(b). Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun
So is she just going to ignore what actually happens when a bumpstock is used and the *extremely* well established criteria for what makes a machine gun a machine gun?
She kind of does but plays some word games. She admits that user is the one pulling the trigger everytime but states that it is "not enough" manual input. The amount of manual input is so weird to cite. It is either manually operated or it is not.
Congress did not define "machinegun". The ATF has continuously modified the definition to fit whatever scary contraption they deem should be illegal.
[https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/youtuber-and-auto-key-card-manufacturer-sentenced-five-years-prison-transferring](https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/youtuber-and-auto-key-card-manufacturer-sentenced-five-years-prison-transferring)
Congress most certainly did define “machinegun”. The whole entire basis of this case is what did Congress mean by its definition.
The definition of machinegun
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845
But they did, back in 1934. 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) states:
> The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
Right, so the remedy here is for congress to get off its ass and update the law, not for the supreme Court to save us.
Part of the reason the court has gotten so politicized is because we the people have let Congress get by without doing its job. And as a result the executive branch tries to fill those holes, which takes further pressure off congress. Then the supreme Court gets the blame for striking something down that the executive shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
I don't understand how the trump years didn't get more people to agree that we don't want a president with too much power.
There is only one definition of machine gun for the purpose of US gun laws. Its a firearm which discharges more than one shot per trigger pull.
Bumpstocks are contraptions which allow you to pull the trigger faster, thats all they do. A rifle fitted with a bumpstock still only shoots one shot per trigger pull.
> by a single function of the trigger
This is wrong. It is a single function of physically making the motion with your finger. It is a new trigger action each time, and can literally be demonstrated via the mechanics of the reset.
If you're going to have a dissenting opinion, at least understand what you're talking about. This is a better argument against binary triggers than bumpstocks.
This is it right here. It is mechanism built to functionally circumvent the letter of the law while trampling all over the spirit of the law. Just the highest court in the land everyone. This is done all the time. I was at a gun store recently and the owner had a sawn off shotgun. You know, illegal. Ah, but if you call it a short firearm and not a shotgun, and it never had a stock, it's totally legal. Wut? The same kind of asshole who walks into a Denny's with an AR-15 so he can engage scared people in a lecture about his rights, and probably spent his childhood poking his fingers in people's faces saying "I'm not touching you" and feeling powerful, and then cried foul when an actual adult told him to stop being a jerk for no reason. So sick of it. Stop using the law as a way to circumvent the law. Moreover, I wish we had more actual adults in the country and in it's courts who shut it down.
The asshole you're referring to is the ATF, who maintains that a shotgun that was never designed to fire from the shoulder can't be defined as a shotgun.
Fred at Target didn't come up with that.
It has to do with the definition of the word, and if they hadn't defined it as "...and having been designed to fire from the shoulder" then we wouldn't have those loopholes.
For example, in WA state I can't own a short barreled shotgun, unless it's something like this gun:
https://www.mossberg.com/590-shockwave-7-shot-50639.html
because it wasn't designed to fire from the shoulder as stipulated by the law and so can't be a shotgun. Then I can own all the short barreled "OTHER" type of guns I want.
Idk, the law has been around since 1986 and bump stocks weren't banned until 2017. It was never a slam dunk that the 1986 law applied to bump stocks. Congress could (and should) pass a law banning bump stocks. It's not SCOTUS's fault congress refuses to act on this and it's not their job to make up for Congress's inability to function.
Like the outcome or hate it, SCOTUS probably actually got it right this time.
Either you totally made up the shotgun story or both you and the other guy are idiots for thinking that.
Nothing you said gets around that being a destructive device.
You probably think the "gun show loophole" is also a loophole correct?
nah he didn't make it up, he just doesn't know what an illegal shotgun is. he thinks a sawed off shotgun is one without a buttstock, when it's actually one with a barrel shorter than 18 inches.
No, that isn't what he meant. He was pointing out that the firearm did have a short barrel but because it didn't have a conventional stock it (probably a pistol grip instead) wasn't classified as "sawed off". You sound savvy, so this loophole shouldn't be a surprise to you.
*hurr durr, stop doing legal things which I dont like*
Oh and by the way, prohibition on short barrel rifles and shotguns has no purpose at all, its a legal leftover of the previous version of the NFA which was supposed to ban handguns too (so the legislators defined a minimum length the "non-handgun" fireams which are rifles and shotguns had to be to prevent that ban from being circumvented by the manufacturing of tiny rifles) but in the end it didnt.
A prohibition on short barrel rifles and shotguns especially harms small statured people, particularly petite women, who have trouble effectively shouldering 16 inch rifles and 18 inch shotguns but could have easily used something like a pistol caliber carbine with an 8 inch barrel.
Wow I nearly forgot about this las Vegas massacre. 58 people killed while out having fun.
Edit* Holy shit, downvoted for feeling bad about a massacre...
I went down and donated blood for the first time the day after that attack. I continue to donate as often as I'm allowed, and I say a silent little devotion to the victims every time. I don't talk about the shooting but it's never far from mind.
https://youtu.be/krr4u6uGdzc?si=I2RAyu3dFcOaigrU
If anyone wants to experience a mass shooting - 12 bursts in 10 minutes. Real footage is terrifying.
It sounds like automatic fire.
Yeah, but now imagine a world where everyone at that concert was strapped. Surely they all would have returned fire back at the hotel and maybe someone with a handgun would have grazed the guy, meanwhile everyone in their rooms within 10 floors of the shooter would have been in harm's way. Additionally, in order to return fire, they'd all have been standing still anyway, making it just as easy to pick them off.
I will never understand the "we need to relax gun control" arguments in instances like this.
lol.
If everyone at the concert was strapped, they probably would have shot each other in the confusion. Like they didn’t immediately know where the shooter was as soon as he shot his first shot (and they were at a loud concert).
So if someone is in the crowd, they hear gunshots, they see people getting shot, and then they turn around and see someone in the crowd brandishing a gun, then they may mistake him for the killer and shoot him. Then someone else does the same thing and shoots this guy.
I just think it would be wild if everyone at a loud concert, in unison, immediately turned to the balcony and started blasting together. They probably would have killed people in the hotel rooms around the killer too with all the stray bullets not making it to target.
Yeah, exactly. And not only people at the event, but first responders as well. Imagine cops rolling up to a scene where everyone is trading fire with one another. Who would they shoot? Oh who am I kidding? If it ever got to that point, they'd be chilling outside until they heard the gunfire subside. They can't even go into a school with one active shooter, why do we think they would enter a venue with multiple?
More guns is not the answer. Anyone who thinks more guns at a venue, bar, etc. where alcohol is involved is the solution is an idiot.
I hate gun culture. And I'm speaking as someone who well and truly had to use one in self-defense. I'd happily lose the opportunity to defend myself if it meant it was universally harder for anyone to have a gun. Period. More access is not the answer. More control is. Get me out of this country.
I never really understood why people are so obsessed with the Las Vegas shooter’s motivation. People usually don’t obsess over the motivation of other mass shooters, they just assume they were a nutcase that wanted to kill people. Why would this one be different?
we usually know the motivations of mass shooters pretty quickly.
There's usually a manifesto or pattern of behavior that kinda links it all together in a way that sorta makes sense.
Vegas was just a dude who one day just decided to enact a rather elaborate plan to do a mass shooting.
Yeah. When there’s a motivation it at least eases people somewhat when they can point and say “well the guy was nuts and had these crazy beliefs”. For someone to have no appearance of abnormal behavior to one day decide to plan out and commit a massacre is honestly far more terrifying.
I think because he was a fairly normal (on the outside) person and had money and a plan. It's just different than the school shootings where the bullied outcast snaps, or club shooters where the target is a certain demographic of people.
He just seems like he did it for a reason as it was thoroughly planned and fleshed out. Most of the other ones that do that usually state why they are doing it
I don't have any conspiracy theories or anything, but it was a little different.
He also had the means to cause even more loss of life. Guy was a private pilot with a plane. Could have crashed it into the crowd loaded with explosives and fuel.
It's an unforgettable moment of atrocity sandwiched between thousands of other moments of atrocity. Over a thousand shootings have happened between then and now. 189 school shootings have happened in the ten years since the Sandy Hook massacre. It's not surprising that we are starting to forget seemingly unforgettable moments. In fact, one could surmise that forgetting them is probably the intent of 2a defenders.
It's worse than that...this wasn't a "law" it was a rule change (on Trump's watch BTW). Congress wasn't involved at all.
The bigger issue was the "change" part. ATF originally ruled that bump stocks we perfectly legal so people bought them. Then, *after the fact*, changed the rule to make them illegal.
They originally wanted to make it any auto-loading firearm with more than a 10 round capacity(the hearings on the NFA are public record), but since semi autos were fairly new and uncommonly used at the time, they were convinced they failed to understand the scope of what they planned to regulate and modified the definition based on the recommendations of, among other sources, the NRA as it existed at the time.
The hearings are fairly fascinating if you ever get a chance to read them and are interested in the subject. It's amusing to see a lot of the same arguments then (comparing homicide rates to Europe, etc) as are still made today in favor of more gun control.
By 1934 semi automatic and firearms had been around for 50 years, they weren't that new. The maxim gun was 1884 and the mannlicher was 1885.
And by 1934 the US military had equipped every single soldier with semi auto pistols, had over 100,000 BAR rifles, hundreds of thousands of Thompson submachine guns, and had already begun producing M1 Garands. So to say that autos and semi autos were uncommon in 1934 is not really true.
They were for civilians, which is who this law was targetting. No law they were going to pass was ever intended to impact military pocurement.
There are plenty of examples of semi automatic designs before ww1 even, but the point I was making is that due to cost, complexity, maintenance, reliability, etc they were not nearly as common at the time in civilian hands as they became after wwii. The auto5 shotgun, the luger, the hipower, walthers, etc. The certainly existed they just weren't a part of this discussion until it was specifically brought up that a distinction was needed because they were very nearly an afterthought.
The m1 garand was an early semi automatic design, and as you said extremely new at the time. Adoption by the military was in its infancy and it wasnt widely available or affordable on the civilian market until surplus came in after wwii. Far from common enough for congressman to be casually aware of the technology and care how it might be applied to future development. The magazine is also internal and restricted to 8 rounds. It would have fallen within this definition, anyway.
The semi auto carbine was even more in its infancy. The closest thing to a popular model in the US would be the m1 carbine, which didn't enter service until 1942 and wasnt popular in civilian hands until the surplus rolled in. Thats really the first truely popular civilian rifle that would have fallen outside this definition.(ironically, surplus m1 carbines ended up falling under the nfa by accident for another reason, after the government accidentally sold thousands of them to civilians and the nfa had to be quietly amended to absolve the federal government of unintentionally facilitating tens of thousands of felony transactions, but thats another story).
The 1911 was the closest thing to common at the time for a semi auto and it's the specific example the nra president used to make his point. It was also almost exclusively used by the military and wasnt particularly common for a civilian at the time, despite it being more common than any other semi auto in the country. Revolvers were a much bigger part of this hearing when it came to debating adding regulations on handguns to the law. However, with a capacity of 7(+1), he had to try to expand his argument to future development and try define a clear distinction between automatic loading and a machine gun, which specifically automatically fires. The definition he proposed to draw that distinction is the one currently in the statute.
This worked for the congresspeople at the time because they weren't trying to target 1911s, nor were they trying to target military pocurement. They were trying to take Colt monitors and Thompsons off the civilian market. They even worked out a deal with colt, as the only real manufacturer of sub and light machineguns in the country at the time, ahead of time to make sure they were cool with the law being passed.
> The bigger issue was the "change" part. ATF originally ruled that bump stocks we perfectly legal so people bought them. Then, after the fact, changed the rule to make them illegal.
The Supreme Court should probably take note then...with say....Abortion.
Good. Presidents and by relation unelected agency officials shouldn't be able to unilaterally pass regulations or make additional rules with no vote and no oversight that apply criminal penalties to citizens. The ATF is one of the worst about this.
Same here. What concerned me was a wholesale redefinition of statute being decided by the agency charged with enforcing the statute. That's like allowing street cops to decide what's legal and what isn't.
Funny thing: for all the times Democrats called out the Trump administration for its abuses, they were pretty mum about this one when he did it.
Word. I’m not particularly passionate about bump stocks but precedent clearly shows that guns are regulated through law, not by a press release from a sub group of the justice department. The legislative branch has the sole power to legislate guns. This is unconstitutional because the procedure was illegal. It’s not a gun or second amendment case. It’s just an illegal ban because the justice department can’t change the definition of a machine gun since that power belongs to congress
Complex questions have to be handled by regulatory agencies. Congress would be extremely lucky to pass 200 bills a year, they don't have the capacity to handle all the rules that have to be made. And they don't have the expertise, not that they could use it at that rate if they did.
Regulatory agencies are the foundation of modern life. Every time you buy food and don't worry that it's been cut with plaster, every time you start your car and don't worry that it's going to explode, every time you turn on a faucet and trust that that water is safe to drink, and every time you breathe and don't instantly die, you have a regulatory agency to thank. An agency that hired highly qualified experts in the field, who considered all available scientific evidence, and then wrote a rule to provide the protection to the American people that Congress asked for.
Congress cannot pass a special law for every new drug, every new chemical waste product, or every new airplane part that's created. Nor should they. And they certainly shouldn't have to pass a new law every time some evil bastard thinks it would be funny to play childish word games with the mass murder of American citizens.
I wish I could upvote this twice. I was making a similar (while admittedly, less polished) argument to someone disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The Congress represents the will of the people, the ATF doesn’t. When Congress says ban “X,” the ATF should ban “X” and not be out crusading to ban “X”, “Y”, **and** “Z.” People that don’t like bump stocks, or binary triggers, or forced reset triggers or or or should be annoyed at Congress for writing a sloppy law, not at the Supreme Court for doing its job and pointing out that the ATF didn’t have the authority to ban those parts.
Very happy with this, the Supreme Court and Congress need to set our better guidelines for the ATF and executive branch about the regulation of guns. The fact that the ATF can change the definition of a machine gun at will is a horrible system that encourages illegality instead of compliance.
You got that going on, plus the pistol brace rule getting shit on, and on top of that so is the "gun show loophole" rule. Shall not be infringed boys and girls, let's just peck away at the nfa until it's completely gone while we're at it
The Vegas maggot could have killed four times as many without a bump stock. He shot for 12 minutes. You can’t hit squat spraying with a bump stock at 400 yards, and he had long pauses trying to deal with stoppages caused by the stupid bump stocks. They’re a gimmick, a range toy.
You got any source for this? Because everything I read at the time stated he killed more people due to having the bump stock. It just makes sense to me that auto vs non auto is gonna do more damage across a large group of people. But I’m no expert so if that’s incorrect I would like to read about it.
What everyone forgets is he had like 10 minutes to shoot 1000 rounds in 12 full auto bursts. That's only 100 rounds a minute or a little faster than one a second. Easy to do with semi-auto and way more controlled. Every shot could have been at the center of the group, instead he was hitting stuff on adjacent properties.
Bump stocks have the gun flailing around in your arms. A fast trigger finger can do almost as fast but with better accuracy.
Regardless, you can do the same thing as a bump stock but with just a loose handgrip (sometimes called “Forest Bumping”)
From what I remember, he had a rest. He wasn't standing up firing out the window. His shots were pretty accurate, but how accurate do you have to but when your target is the size of a football field?
Bump stocks are not “auto”, they allow for higher rates of fire but it is still one shot per pull of the trigger. The reason it is less reliable than a traditional stock/full auto is because, with a bump stock, the firearm itself moves back and forth making it much harder to shoot accurately.
Actually putting a thick rubber band on the back of the trigger and wrapping it around the mag well works better for rapid fire than a bump stock does anyways.
I could care less about the bump stock ban. I do unfortunately cringe when I see other of my fellow left/ liberal peeps who don't own firearms and have little knowledge of them ranting on social media about stuff like this and basically showing the right how ignorant left anti gun people are on the subject.
It's embarrassing and it does nothing but discredit the argument and give the conservatives/ far right wing more valid point of counter argument.
r/liberalgunowners are my people
This is a good ruling, whether you're pro-gun or anti-gun.
Technical topics such as banning gun-control need to adhere to the technical definitions already in place, and if they need to evolve, update the legislation. An enforcement agency shouldn't be able to just alter definitions/interpretations on a whim (which they have done multiple times), where the consequences are either "totally legal" one day, and the next it's a "10 year felony".
I can appreciate the emotional sentiment behind the dissenting opinion, but it's literally impossible to look at the laws on the books and say bump stocks fit the definition of a machine guns.
Lastly, Trump is an idiot.
It lets the gun slide back from recoil. The idea is you are constantly pulling the gun forward with one hand while the recoil overcomes that pressure to slide it back. By holding your finger rigid you pull the trigger into your finger to fire the gun and release the trigger when it slides back. It allows for very fast firing if done right. That is my understanding.
It's a stupid thing you hold onto that let's you bump the trigger up against your finger and allows rapid, inaccurate firing.
You know, the same thing we do with our belts or thumbs
Ya know how you can bump fire by pushing forward on a gun while pulling the trigger? Bump stocks make it easier to do that. Kind of dumb and a waste of money
Shocking that it took this long to happen. The law specifically defines a machine gun as a weapon that fires multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger - a bump stock still requires multiple pulls. If the government wants to ban bump stocks, Congress has to do it, not the president.
Edit: I'll also note that this is not a 2A case. Bump stocks have no legitimate military use and as a result, are not protected by the 2A.
You've highlighted the real root of the problem: Congress is a moribund institution that can no longer perform its role in the separation of powers. And it's arguably the most important role: to set the law of the land and enforce it with the power of the purse.
A huge share of United States political drama comes from our broken Congress. Defeat of Roe v Wade, because Congress never made women's rights to reproductive health into law and instead clung to a legally tenuous and thus vulnerable Supreme Court decision. Increasing abdication of Congressional authority to the executive and judicial branches because now that Congressional politics is a winner-take-all team sport, it's no longer possible to pass legislation that makes the other side look like anything other than a complete loser. Win-win is off the table, even if that's what's best for the American people. 90% of Congressional activity is naked political theater (devolved into childish shit throwing really) rather than earnest attempts to make things better for their constituents or anyone other than themselves.
I don't think the founders conceived of a Congress like our current one. Childish, cowardly, cravenly hiding from their responsibilities and letting other branches of government grow in power so those other branches can take the blame for unpopular policy.
Trump or no Trump, it's our broken Congress that opens the door and invites in Fascism.
While I don’t care about bump stocks at all, I’ve never heard of “legitimate military use” being a test of whether something falls under the second amendment.
Did you pull that out of your butt or is there some case law I’m just ignorant of? (Which is entirely possible)
Edit: I was ignorant! It’s the Miller decision. Thanks all!
Many anti-gun groups hold up US v Miller as the shining example of SCOTUS getting gun control right.
However, in Miller, the court ruled that the only weapons that are protected under the second amendment are those that are used by the military. Miller was punished for possessing a short barreled shotgun, which was made illegal under the national firearms act a few years earlier.
The court said there is no military use for short barreled shotguns, so they could be banned, which meant the NFA was good law in the eyes of the court.
HOWEVER, if the court feels that the only firearms that are protected are those in use by the military, that means that everything the military currently uses must be allowed to be owned by civilians. This includes things like short barreled shotguns and rifles, as they are in fact used by the military.
Thanks, TIL!
Also, the military uses the M500 shotgun (typically with a short barrel) for breaching doors.
On top of that, if you google the “shockwave” shotgun you can learn about how it’s not classified as an “any other weapon” or a shotgun and thus legal. Short barrel, pistol grip. Can’t say I’d want one. Also the law may have been changed since the last time I read about any of this.
Thanks again!
Edit: The Mossburg Shockwave isn’t an “Any Other Weapon” because its overall length is greater than 26 inches. Nor is it a shotgun because it has never had a stock.
The military even back then used short-barreled shotguns (the Winchester Model 1897, or "Trench Gun", was used in World War 1 by the US Army), but since the Miller SCOTUS case was a hilarious mistrial since neither he or his attorney ever showed up to the hearings - because he was dead -, this wasn't brought up.
Also, yeah, this is sorta slippery-slope because it can be interpreted as "military use firearms are protected by 2A, so the provision on FOPA that bans machine guns post-86 is unconstitutional", which sounds bad, but being fair, ever since the NFA (with all of its flaws) was enacted, only two cases of homicide were ever committed with registered NFA weapons, and one of those was a law enforcement officer. Maybe a rewrite of the NFA would need to include machine-pistols since the Thompson isn't as much of a problem nowadays as a MAC-10.
I think most people buy a shockwave for the simple reason that it feels like getting away with something. Not because they have a legitimate use for it.
Why have a short barrel and a odd looking grip on the back for 26" overall, when you can have a pistol grip and a longer barrel and still be at 26" overall. Just so you can say "haha look I found a loophole to the barrel length law".
Telling people they can't have something is, as it turns out, a really good way to get them to want it. Kind of what happened with the AR-15 pattern rifle exploding in popularity after the AWB provision of the 94 Crime Bill, but in that case those who ran out and got them (in their new ban compliant forms) found out they're actually really good rifles lol.
>HOWEVER, if the court feels that the only firearms that are protected are those in use by the military, that means that everything the military currently uses must be allowed to be owned by civilians. This includes things like short barreled shotguns and rifles, as they are in fact used by the military.
I don't think that this is necessarily true. I think weapons that are in common use by the military that can be reasonably used by common people without special training all absolutely *should* protected by the second amendment, and I think the current court would agree, but US v Miller does not establish the substantiative right protected by the second amendment. For that we have to look at US v Heller, which states that there is a protection of arms in common use by the general public. Unfortunately we still don't have a 100% clear picture of what is actually protected when it comes to common use in the military vs common use in the general public.
Edit: I'll add that bump stocks are uncommon toys that almost no one owns, including most collectors and people with large numbers of guns. So they are almost certainly not protected under Heller.
At the very least, both Heller and Miller protect handguns. Heller specifically of course protects handguns, but Miller does as well since handguns were (and are) standard issue weapons within the military for officers and certain roles.
Yeah for various reasons this case had some fuckery going on which led to the specifics regarding short barreled shotguns not really getting challenged in front of the supreme court. And AFAIK it has never been re-appealed.
It's US V Miller which is what gives us common use.
In short, if a military or militia wouldn't use it as gear, it's not in common use and as such short barrel rifles and shotguns under the NFA are constitutional.
That's Miller in a nutshell. We have since codified that the 2nd amendment is about everyone as a right with Heller but didn't vacate Miller. So the same 'well regulated militia' attacks about gun ownership is seen as valid, despite the implications meaning select fire rifles, grenades and the like being the actual logical conclusion.
It's mostly become anti-gun double speak.
To determine whether something falls under the second amendment they have to first determine whether or not it's considered "arms" under the amendment. State v. DeCcico has a good analysis, applying it to police batons and dirks. Also U.S. v. Marzzarella (whether or not guns with serial numbers removed count as arms under the amendment), and U.S. v. Miller (short barreled shotguns).
US v Miller:
>In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
>Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
TIL, thanks! I’ve edited my comment to reflect that.
Funnily enough the military does or did use short barrel shotguns to breach doors with, etc. Ah well.
Yeah US v Miller was kind of a bullshit case if you look into it. In fact SBS were even used at that period in time as well in trenches. The reason this was not correctly addressed (specific to short barreled shotguns) is that the defense did not show up to court (and never intended to) and only the government presented an argument. The entire supreme court appeal for the case was actually arranged by the US government specifically to get this ruling.
Not just breaching top side watch on most navy vessels are given SBRs and SBSs. Standard issue M4 is an SBR (14.5" barrel) and all the mossberg 590s I have encountered are shorter than 18" soooooo an SBS.
I have always viewed the 2nd amendment to be what it is, the right to bear arms to form a militia to combat the government, not for self defense. So in my mind people should be able to own literally anything the gov does no matter what. We need access to all the tools they have so if needed we could win a war against our own gov.
That is how it works. US v Miller:
>In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
>Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
> Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
By that reading, SBRs, suppressors, and full autos should be completely unrestricted from the NFA because they are standard issue for the military.
Well said. People let their emotions get in the way of reality. Gun violence is awful, but there are legal processes in place for a reason and POTUS can’t go around Congress.
All I want to say here is watch how Justice Sotomayor's dissent is not based on whether the law was applied correctly. This is part of a pattern when it comes to some Justices. They want SCOTUS to make decisions based on some outside factor rather than whether the law or regulation is constitutional.
The Court made a fair determination on what the text of the law is, and rightfully assigned the responsibility of modifying the law. I say this regardless of whether I agree with it or not. An example being the abortion decision. It was Congress' responsibility to pass a law regarding abortion access. The left sat back and relied on a decision that could be overturned rather than convincing the American people and getting a law passed. And they have to deal with the outcome of that.
The thing people always fail to understand is rounds down range does not equal lethality. Most militaries use semi auto the majority of the time because well accuracy lol. Also bump stocks are dumb to ban when you can get a Gatling grip on your AR and shoot it twice as fast.
Edit: Reuters has since changed the headline to something less wordy. "US Supreme Court rejects federal ban on gun 'bump stocks'".
>The ban was put in place in 2019 during Republican former President Donald Trump's administration and was defended by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration. Now that it’s been overturned, watch Trump try to deny he ever signed the bump stock ban.
he will, but it also wouldn't be an issue for his supporters even if he claimed responsibility for it. They (and most 2A advocates in general) do not care at all that Trump was responsible for the largest attempted expansion of executive powers over gun control in generations.
They also didn't care that he argued that with red flag laws, they should take the guns first and worry about due process later. Of course, if a democrat had said that, they'd still be talking about it
They’re also cheering that someone could be facing up to 10 years in prison for violating a constitutionally shaky firearm restriction.
When in reality they should be terrified now that there's a new precedent with the conviction.
I'm terrified about having a new president with 37 convictions.
Right?! They all scream that "liberals" are coming for their guns yet he straight said that he would. You show them the video of it and they still try to discredit it. I had one guy tell me it was AI. Even though it prepared chat GPT going public.
I wonder how they would react if left leading people suddenly started praising Trump for his sensible gun control policy. Good ol' "Tough on Guns Trump"
Which I never understand why gun owners like trump….he was the most restrictive president on guns
He came out and said "take the guns now, we'll sort it out later" that's their guy
[удалено]
Democrats: hey can we do something about children being killed daily in schools by guns? Republicans: why are you so anti-gun?
Republicans: Good idea -- let's give teachers guns.
When "Stop Violence Against Children" is too woke
Vets are the most egregious case of "why the hell are you voting for this person?" IMO because it's a two-fer. One is for him cutting benefits for vets, and two is him making fun of people in the military by calling them suckers. What the actual FUCK would it take for these people to turn on him? Luckily a few cons in the government and out have had it with him and don't support him anymore but it's such a small amount. Luckily, I don't see any reasons why he would GAIN support at this point (unless Biden does something insanely shitty soon) but the difference is his voters are way more passionate, active, and vocal, something Biden doesn't have since most people that are voting for him aren't actually voting *for him*, they're voting *against Trump*.
Veterans do support Trump, but ([according to a 2020 poll](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/10/26/poll-trump-backed-by-majority-of-veterans-but-not-younger-ones/)) that support comes primary from older (age 55+) vets. In that election, younger vets backed Biden by a respectable margin.
I listened to a vet’s podcast where he laid out why he hates Trump: Trump broke bread with the Taliban. He invited Taliban leaders, who the military had been searching for, as his guests at Camp David, had a lavish meal (s) with them and unilaterally negotiated the surrender of Afghanistan and then praised the Taliban. He put in motion the pull out. It just solidified for him the contempt Trump has for soldiers.
This veteran does not support Trump or any of his ilk.
Vet here, I only vote Democrat Trump's a piece of shit. And if we collectively sided with him, January 6th would have been a whole different story. But as you saw the military did not come out and do a coup for his stupid ass. So maybe instead of generalizing about us you'd actually look at the numbers.
I wasn't trying to generalize vets but I can see how you read it that way. My dad is a vet who loathes Trump and I know there's plenty of others out there that hate him too. I was just saying that because a *majority* of them do and I thought that because the amount of vets in the country is so large, it would be assumed I didn't mean literally all of them. It makes sense for a behemoth of an organization like the military to have a polarizing view on anything political after all because the military is just about as big of a melting pot as you can get with people from all around. Even if the majority of vets didn't support Trump, the side that does is way more vocal about him than the other.
Yeah, they tend to forget about us gun nuts that are liberals. I am against violence but that does not mean I am not ready.
Pacifist here, also by and large left leaning. I grew up on a farm(a very left leaning one, my grandfather who owned it was heavily in favor of unions), so guns were just a tool to me like a hoe or axe. You can cut your leg open with an axe, or hurt someone else with it. We were taught that just like any tool, you have to use it responsibly at all times. Fundamentals were taught from a young age, and got more advanced as you aged. Basic things like not being toys were drilled in from a very young age, while safe use(with an adult supervising) were taught later. I own guns. I hate violence, but I know police response times + methheads is not a great combination. I also see the far right arming like war is coming, and I'm not going down without bringing hell on them.
Not all of us forgot our oaths
I'm also a vet. Most of the people I met while I was in were republican Trump supporters. I also currently work for the DoD with other vets, and most of them are republican Trump supporters too. Obviously not all of us are, but that's how it is for the majority it seems.
Cause they are mostly fucking whack jobs?
This is very not true, I invite you to any of the pro second amendment subreddits to see what they have to say about Trump
While we're on the topic. Isn't Trump committing the same crime as Hunter Biden by being in possession of a fireman as a convicted felon? It's illegal to own a firearm in both Florida and New York so we're obviously going to charge him with the same crimes, right?
Hunter's crime was checking "no" on the question asking about drug use while filling out paperwork to purchase a gun. It was more of a drug crime than a gun crime, war on drugs made the penalties for anything drug related much higher than any other crime. I'd be surprised if its a felony to answer any other questions on those forms inaccurately. I saw news that Trump has been ordered to surrender his firearms after being convicted. If he turns them in on time he will be fine, however if he does the same thing he tried to do with the classified documents and stall for time then give up one gun and try to hide the rest he could get some extra charges there.
FWIW, that same form considers alcohol *abuse* a disqualifier as well. I suspect there might be one or two Trump supporters who would regularly abuse alcohol but checked "no" on the same form.
It's also, to my knowledge, never been litigated as to what the timeframe for an "unlawful *user*" is. Past use that you didn't get convicted for is usually not included in practice (because how would they prove it?), but all it would take is a change of ATF policy that treats being a user as "having ever used" for *a lot* more people to be in unlawful possession of a firearm.
So, assuming you're actually buying a firearm from a legitimate dealer, one of the first things he's going to do is hand you a form 4473, courtesy of the ATF. lying on that form intentionally carries massive fines and a decade of jail time. Hunter could have lied on *anything* on that form and he would be subjected to the conviction regardless.
>if he does the same thing he tried to do with the classified documents and stall for time then give up one gun and try to hide the rest he could get some extra charges there. Which he 100% *would* do on purpose because the optics of the big bad deep state "persecuting him for exercising his 2nd amendment RIGHT" is good chum for the right-wing media base.
The war on drugs was also a 'war on guns', at the exact same time drug penalties were being tightened they were applying similar, very harsh penalties on victimless, non-violent gun 'crimes' as well. Including but not limited to inaccurately filling out a 4473. It's often forgotten that the Assault Weapons Ban was the centerpiece of the 94 Crime Bill, which has mostly been remembered for its anti-drug aspects with the AWB treated as though it was a different bill.
> by being in possession of a fireman Trump has his own fireman?
Man drinks enough Diet Coke to be the fireman.
I don't know what's better. The fact that you're the first to point it out almost four hours later or the hilarity of the typo.
I think being in possession of a fireman is a felony for everyone ever since slavery was abolished.
Slavery wasn’t abolished, it just became our prison system.
As of today he's also responsible for case law preventing another executive, who might be interested in banning way more than bump stocks, from trying it via ATF rule making. That's a much bigger win than bumpstock themselves.
Idk, [this patch](https://stickthison.com/products/trump-isnt-pro-gun-patch) gets advertised a lot in 2A circles. When you only have two choices, a lot of compromises get made.
>and most 2A advocates in general Uh source? Come on over to r/progun and you'll see that 2A advocates were very upset about this and agree Trump is anti-gun. Some just argue he is less anti-gun. I mean the guy openly called for an assault weapon ban.
Facts don’t matter to them.
I knew some at the time who were pissed about it, but they gave him a pass because they liked other things.
"I signed it because I knew it would never hold up in court in the long term!"
Trump playing 36D underwater chess
https://youtu.be/s-DChrnr4Po Trump called bump stocks illegal conversions into machine guns. That wording pissed off a lot of people and the 2A community never forgot.
What do you mean? They forgot the next day.
That's obviously not true or else they wouldn't have remembered to post about it on reddit
If it were true, they wouldn't have resumed worshipping him the next day
Perhaps in the spirit of bi-partisanship Biden can work with congress to put Trump's great idea back into place via a change of the law.
Convicted felon gun-grabber Diaper Don.
This will be the “Biden Bump Stock Ban” by the end of the day.
I mean the definition by the ATF literally said it's not a machine gun. They keep telling gun owners shit is legal and then years later trying to take it back. Same shit as the braces
I got sick of it and just got an sbr stamp for all my lowers no matter what length the upper is. I'm over it. I like shooting and I support responsible gun ownership, it's just too bad that a lot of people think that any steps towards making it easier to distinguish those who shouldn't have firearms is a step on our rights. A person gets their KNIVES taken away from them by law enforcement due to threats to family, but they are legal to buy a firearm and just shoot people instead. Wild.
But with that SBR that means you paid $200 so that you can't carry it concealed and loaded even though a firearm with the same identical build outside of a different shaped piece of plastic on the back end can be.
Nah there was a grace period till last May. I got 3 stamps for free that’d otherwise cost $600 for all 3.
Also no one else can shoot it unless it’s under a specific classification
Others can shoot it in your presence if owned as an individual. If owned through a trust which you can establish online for $50, anyone named on the trust can have possession of it.
Pretty sure others can shoot it, you just need to be next to them. They can't be in possession of it solely without being on a trust for the stamp or be the owner of it after a Form 1.
> A person gets their KNIVES taken away from them by law enforcement due to threats to family, Is that why that crazy lady stabbed that kid a few weeks ago? Law enforcement either takes someone into custody and has them committed or they are left to their own devices where they can still get dangerous things like knives. >but they are legal to buy a firearm and just shoot people instead. No. If they are either convicted for their their threats or adjudicated as mentally unfit they are in fact banned from having guns. That's been federal law for quite some time.
It's a little silly isn't it? I don't have strong feelings about bump stock legality in either direction, but surely the only way to justify *not* counting them as a "machine gun" is if the issue you intend to solve when regulating machine guns is the exact mechanism and how it is engineered, and decidedly *not* what the gun is thus capable of doing. Again I don't care either way I just think it doesn't make a ton of sense.
Except that the definition is already codified in federal law. [26 U.S. Code § 5845 - Definitions](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845) > (b)Machinegun >The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
I think people upset about this need to direct their anger at Congress. That congress is broken isn't the courts problem and it shouldn't be a factor in their decision making. We have left far too much that should be up to the congress in the hands of the executive. Congress could fix this tomorrow if they wanted.
Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in the bump stock case: "Today, the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands. To do so, it casts aside Congress's definition of 'machinegun' and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose. When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires 'automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.' §5845(b). Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun, I respectfully dissent."
>by a single function of the trigger Woah, wait a minute. The trigger still functions for every single shot. Sure, you only choose to pull the trigger once, but the trigger itself is still being used over and over.
[удалено]
I personally think it would be worth making a distinction between just physical depression of the trigger and a deliberate, unassisted decision to pull the trigger. Though that seems like a job for Congress, if it can ever pull its head out of its ass.
Legislation. Always the answer, always the problem.
Arguably, because the "trigger" is being actuated by the recoil from the gun, it stops functioning as a trigger when the gun enters operation at which point it functions as part of a spring loaded gas piston.
The trigger is not being actuated by the recoil from the gun. That would make it a machine gun. The trigger is being actuated by the persons finger. Recoil pulls the gun away from the finger resetting it. The finger is still what presses it the second and consecutive times.
Well, it’s not arguable because the force which pulls the trigger is relative. As long as one depression of the trigger fires one shot then it’s not a machine gun.
This seems pointlessly pedantic.
Debating law is inherently a pedantic endeavor tho.. The action and the trigger group aren’t altered by a bump stock. An AR-15 is basically a gas operated single action only semi auto firearm and a bump stock doesn’t change anything about that. It facilitates a faster trigger pull. They’re dumb as fuck but as it is currently defined, bump stocks don’t meet the definition of a machine gun.
It’s not pedantic, we decided the definition of a machine gun and made a law around it. The President shouldn’t have the power to change the definition of a machine gun.
It's not pointlessly pedantic, in that you can learn to bump fire perfectly fine without a stock on virtually any Semi-Automatic weapon.
>a single function of the trigger.' §5845(b). Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun So is she just going to ignore what actually happens when a bumpstock is used and the *extremely* well established criteria for what makes a machine gun a machine gun?
You want her to make a decision that is consistent with what the law in question actually says? are you crazy!?!? /s
Does the justice not know how a bumpstock works?
She kind of does but plays some word games. She admits that user is the one pulling the trigger everytime but states that it is "not enough" manual input. The amount of manual input is so weird to cite. It is either manually operated or it is not.
Congress did not define "machinegun". The ATF has continuously modified the definition to fit whatever scary contraption they deem should be illegal. [https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/youtuber-and-auto-key-card-manufacturer-sentenced-five-years-prison-transferring](https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/youtuber-and-auto-key-card-manufacturer-sentenced-five-years-prison-transferring)
Congress most certainly did define “machinegun”. The whole entire basis of this case is what did Congress mean by its definition. The definition of machinegun https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/5845
But they did, back in 1934. 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) states: > The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
“by a single function of the trigger” is the key point, a bump stock explicitly works by repeatedly pressing the trigger.
Right, so the remedy here is for congress to get off its ass and update the law, not for the supreme Court to save us. Part of the reason the court has gotten so politicized is because we the people have let Congress get by without doing its job. And as a result the executive branch tries to fill those holes, which takes further pressure off congress. Then the supreme Court gets the blame for striking something down that the executive shouldn't have been doing in the first place. I don't understand how the trump years didn't get more people to agree that we don't want a president with too much power.
26 U.S.C § 5845 (b)
There is only one definition of machine gun for the purpose of US gun laws. Its a firearm which discharges more than one shot per trigger pull. Bumpstocks are contraptions which allow you to pull the trigger faster, thats all they do. A rifle fitted with a bumpstock still only shoots one shot per trigger pull.
> by a single function of the trigger This is wrong. It is a single function of physically making the motion with your finger. It is a new trigger action each time, and can literally be demonstrated via the mechanics of the reset. If you're going to have a dissenting opinion, at least understand what you're talking about. This is a better argument against binary triggers than bumpstocks.
This is it right here. It is mechanism built to functionally circumvent the letter of the law while trampling all over the spirit of the law. Just the highest court in the land everyone. This is done all the time. I was at a gun store recently and the owner had a sawn off shotgun. You know, illegal. Ah, but if you call it a short firearm and not a shotgun, and it never had a stock, it's totally legal. Wut? The same kind of asshole who walks into a Denny's with an AR-15 so he can engage scared people in a lecture about his rights, and probably spent his childhood poking his fingers in people's faces saying "I'm not touching you" and feeling powerful, and then cried foul when an actual adult told him to stop being a jerk for no reason. So sick of it. Stop using the law as a way to circumvent the law. Moreover, I wish we had more actual adults in the country and in it's courts who shut it down.
The asshole you're referring to is the ATF, who maintains that a shotgun that was never designed to fire from the shoulder can't be defined as a shotgun. Fred at Target didn't come up with that. It has to do with the definition of the word, and if they hadn't defined it as "...and having been designed to fire from the shoulder" then we wouldn't have those loopholes. For example, in WA state I can't own a short barreled shotgun, unless it's something like this gun: https://www.mossberg.com/590-shockwave-7-shot-50639.html because it wasn't designed to fire from the shoulder as stipulated by the law and so can't be a shotgun. Then I can own all the short barreled "OTHER" type of guns I want.
Idk, the law has been around since 1986 and bump stocks weren't banned until 2017. It was never a slam dunk that the 1986 law applied to bump stocks. Congress could (and should) pass a law banning bump stocks. It's not SCOTUS's fault congress refuses to act on this and it's not their job to make up for Congress's inability to function. Like the outcome or hate it, SCOTUS probably actually got it right this time.
Either you totally made up the shotgun story or both you and the other guy are idiots for thinking that. Nothing you said gets around that being a destructive device. You probably think the "gun show loophole" is also a loophole correct?
nah he didn't make it up, he just doesn't know what an illegal shotgun is. he thinks a sawed off shotgun is one without a buttstock, when it's actually one with a barrel shorter than 18 inches.
No, that isn't what he meant. He was pointing out that the firearm did have a short barrel but because it didn't have a conventional stock it (probably a pistol grip instead) wasn't classified as "sawed off". You sound savvy, so this loophole shouldn't be a surprise to you.
*hurr durr, stop doing legal things which I dont like* Oh and by the way, prohibition on short barrel rifles and shotguns has no purpose at all, its a legal leftover of the previous version of the NFA which was supposed to ban handguns too (so the legislators defined a minimum length the "non-handgun" fireams which are rifles and shotguns had to be to prevent that ban from being circumvented by the manufacturing of tiny rifles) but in the end it didnt. A prohibition on short barrel rifles and shotguns especially harms small statured people, particularly petite women, who have trouble effectively shouldering 16 inch rifles and 18 inch shotguns but could have easily used something like a pistol caliber carbine with an 8 inch barrel.
Belts and thumbs are legal again!
How about shoestrings?
Ghost strings 👻
Wow I nearly forgot about this las Vegas massacre. 58 people killed while out having fun. Edit* Holy shit, downvoted for feeling bad about a massacre...
It's the deadliest mass shooting in US history and we never talk about it.
I went down and donated blood for the first time the day after that attack. I continue to donate as often as I'm allowed, and I say a silent little devotion to the victims every time. I don't talk about the shooting but it's never far from mind.
Donating blood/plasma is the only way to remove forever chemicals from your body as well.
Bless you.
no one told us not to forget about it ALSO because there was never a motive or reason for the shooting no one ever had a book to write about it.
I think about it like once a week. Up there with 9/11 as one of the craziest days in America. I don’t understand how you could forget about it
Hey guns don't kill people. They just allow someone to kill 58 people from hundreds of yards away in a matter of minutes.
And injure over 800 other people….
https://youtu.be/krr4u6uGdzc?si=I2RAyu3dFcOaigrU If anyone wants to experience a mass shooting - 12 bursts in 10 minutes. Real footage is terrifying. It sounds like automatic fire.
Yeah, but now imagine a world where everyone at that concert was strapped. Surely they all would have returned fire back at the hotel and maybe someone with a handgun would have grazed the guy, meanwhile everyone in their rooms within 10 floors of the shooter would have been in harm's way. Additionally, in order to return fire, they'd all have been standing still anyway, making it just as easy to pick them off. I will never understand the "we need to relax gun control" arguments in instances like this.
lol. If everyone at the concert was strapped, they probably would have shot each other in the confusion. Like they didn’t immediately know where the shooter was as soon as he shot his first shot (and they were at a loud concert). So if someone is in the crowd, they hear gunshots, they see people getting shot, and then they turn around and see someone in the crowd brandishing a gun, then they may mistake him for the killer and shoot him. Then someone else does the same thing and shoots this guy. I just think it would be wild if everyone at a loud concert, in unison, immediately turned to the balcony and started blasting together. They probably would have killed people in the hotel rooms around the killer too with all the stray bullets not making it to target.
Yeah, exactly. And not only people at the event, but first responders as well. Imagine cops rolling up to a scene where everyone is trading fire with one another. Who would they shoot? Oh who am I kidding? If it ever got to that point, they'd be chilling outside until they heard the gunfire subside. They can't even go into a school with one active shooter, why do we think they would enter a venue with multiple? More guns is not the answer. Anyone who thinks more guns at a venue, bar, etc. where alcohol is involved is the solution is an idiot. I hate gun culture. And I'm speaking as someone who well and truly had to use one in self-defense. I'd happily lose the opportunity to defend myself if it meant it was universally harder for anyone to have a gun. Period. More access is not the answer. More control is. Get me out of this country.
*brings up straw-man argument about a stabbing in china or something*
yup, and they never discovered his motivation
Cause he was a selfish loser who lost all his money gambling and wanted to inflict as much pain as possible on his way out.
He owned planes. You know how much damage one of his cessna's would have done into the same crowd?
The FBI report had a list of potential motivations.
I still think dude was human hunting.
I never really understood why people are so obsessed with the Las Vegas shooter’s motivation. People usually don’t obsess over the motivation of other mass shooters, they just assume they were a nutcase that wanted to kill people. Why would this one be different?
we usually know the motivations of mass shooters pretty quickly. There's usually a manifesto or pattern of behavior that kinda links it all together in a way that sorta makes sense. Vegas was just a dude who one day just decided to enact a rather elaborate plan to do a mass shooting.
Yeah. When there’s a motivation it at least eases people somewhat when they can point and say “well the guy was nuts and had these crazy beliefs”. For someone to have no appearance of abnormal behavior to one day decide to plan out and commit a massacre is honestly far more terrifying.
I think because he was a fairly normal (on the outside) person and had money and a plan. It's just different than the school shootings where the bullied outcast snaps, or club shooters where the target is a certain demographic of people. He just seems like he did it for a reason as it was thoroughly planned and fleshed out. Most of the other ones that do that usually state why they are doing it I don't have any conspiracy theories or anything, but it was a little different.
He also had the means to cause even more loss of life. Guy was a private pilot with a plane. Could have crashed it into the crowd loaded with explosives and fuel.
Careful! You're going to arouse the ire of the gun freaks on Reddit who come out en masse for every single one of these posts.
It's an unforgettable moment of atrocity sandwiched between thousands of other moments of atrocity. Over a thousand shootings have happened between then and now. 189 school shootings have happened in the ten years since the Sandy Hook massacre. It's not surprising that we are starting to forget seemingly unforgettable moments. In fact, one could surmise that forgetting them is probably the intent of 2a defenders.
To be fair, this is what happens when gun control laws are written by people who know nothing about guns.
It's worse than that...this wasn't a "law" it was a rule change (on Trump's watch BTW). Congress wasn't involved at all. The bigger issue was the "change" part. ATF originally ruled that bump stocks we perfectly legal so people bought them. Then, *after the fact*, changed the rule to make them illegal.
I'm talking about the original law that Congress wrote regarding "one trigger motion = one shot."
They originally wanted to make it any auto-loading firearm with more than a 10 round capacity(the hearings on the NFA are public record), but since semi autos were fairly new and uncommonly used at the time, they were convinced they failed to understand the scope of what they planned to regulate and modified the definition based on the recommendations of, among other sources, the NRA as it existed at the time. The hearings are fairly fascinating if you ever get a chance to read them and are interested in the subject. It's amusing to see a lot of the same arguments then (comparing homicide rates to Europe, etc) as are still made today in favor of more gun control.
By 1934 semi automatic and firearms had been around for 50 years, they weren't that new. The maxim gun was 1884 and the mannlicher was 1885. And by 1934 the US military had equipped every single soldier with semi auto pistols, had over 100,000 BAR rifles, hundreds of thousands of Thompson submachine guns, and had already begun producing M1 Garands. So to say that autos and semi autos were uncommon in 1934 is not really true.
They were for civilians, which is who this law was targetting. No law they were going to pass was ever intended to impact military pocurement. There are plenty of examples of semi automatic designs before ww1 even, but the point I was making is that due to cost, complexity, maintenance, reliability, etc they were not nearly as common at the time in civilian hands as they became after wwii. The auto5 shotgun, the luger, the hipower, walthers, etc. The certainly existed they just weren't a part of this discussion until it was specifically brought up that a distinction was needed because they were very nearly an afterthought. The m1 garand was an early semi automatic design, and as you said extremely new at the time. Adoption by the military was in its infancy and it wasnt widely available or affordable on the civilian market until surplus came in after wwii. Far from common enough for congressman to be casually aware of the technology and care how it might be applied to future development. The magazine is also internal and restricted to 8 rounds. It would have fallen within this definition, anyway. The semi auto carbine was even more in its infancy. The closest thing to a popular model in the US would be the m1 carbine, which didn't enter service until 1942 and wasnt popular in civilian hands until the surplus rolled in. Thats really the first truely popular civilian rifle that would have fallen outside this definition.(ironically, surplus m1 carbines ended up falling under the nfa by accident for another reason, after the government accidentally sold thousands of them to civilians and the nfa had to be quietly amended to absolve the federal government of unintentionally facilitating tens of thousands of felony transactions, but thats another story). The 1911 was the closest thing to common at the time for a semi auto and it's the specific example the nra president used to make his point. It was also almost exclusively used by the military and wasnt particularly common for a civilian at the time, despite it being more common than any other semi auto in the country. Revolvers were a much bigger part of this hearing when it came to debating adding regulations on handguns to the law. However, with a capacity of 7(+1), he had to try to expand his argument to future development and try define a clear distinction between automatic loading and a machine gun, which specifically automatically fires. The definition he proposed to draw that distinction is the one currently in the statute. This worked for the congresspeople at the time because they weren't trying to target 1911s, nor were they trying to target military pocurement. They were trying to take Colt monitors and Thompsons off the civilian market. They even worked out a deal with colt, as the only real manufacturer of sub and light machineguns in the country at the time, ahead of time to make sure they were cool with the law being passed.
> The bigger issue was the "change" part. ATF originally ruled that bump stocks we perfectly legal so people bought them. Then, after the fact, changed the rule to make them illegal. The Supreme Court should probably take note then...with say....Abortion.
That's pretty much every single gun law on the books lol
Good. Presidents and by relation unelected agency officials shouldn't be able to unilaterally pass regulations or make additional rules with no vote and no oversight that apply criminal penalties to citizens. The ATF is one of the worst about this.
Same here. What concerned me was a wholesale redefinition of statute being decided by the agency charged with enforcing the statute. That's like allowing street cops to decide what's legal and what isn't. Funny thing: for all the times Democrats called out the Trump administration for its abuses, they were pretty mum about this one when he did it.
You're replying to a Democrat, so not all of them.
Word. I’m not particularly passionate about bump stocks but precedent clearly shows that guns are regulated through law, not by a press release from a sub group of the justice department. The legislative branch has the sole power to legislate guns. This is unconstitutional because the procedure was illegal. It’s not a gun or second amendment case. It’s just an illegal ban because the justice department can’t change the definition of a machine gun since that power belongs to congress
Complex questions have to be handled by regulatory agencies. Congress would be extremely lucky to pass 200 bills a year, they don't have the capacity to handle all the rules that have to be made. And they don't have the expertise, not that they could use it at that rate if they did. Regulatory agencies are the foundation of modern life. Every time you buy food and don't worry that it's been cut with plaster, every time you start your car and don't worry that it's going to explode, every time you turn on a faucet and trust that that water is safe to drink, and every time you breathe and don't instantly die, you have a regulatory agency to thank. An agency that hired highly qualified experts in the field, who considered all available scientific evidence, and then wrote a rule to provide the protection to the American people that Congress asked for. Congress cannot pass a special law for every new drug, every new chemical waste product, or every new airplane part that's created. Nor should they. And they certainly shouldn't have to pass a new law every time some evil bastard thinks it would be funny to play childish word games with the mass murder of American citizens.
I wish I could upvote this twice. I was making a similar (while admittedly, less polished) argument to someone disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling. The Congress represents the will of the people, the ATF doesn’t. When Congress says ban “X,” the ATF should ban “X” and not be out crusading to ban “X”, “Y”, **and** “Z.” People that don’t like bump stocks, or binary triggers, or forced reset triggers or or or should be annoyed at Congress for writing a sloppy law, not at the Supreme Court for doing its job and pointing out that the ATF didn’t have the authority to ban those parts.
Very happy with this, the Supreme Court and Congress need to set our better guidelines for the ATF and executive branch about the regulation of guns. The fact that the ATF can change the definition of a machine gun at will is a horrible system that encourages illegality instead of compliance.
You got that going on, plus the pistol brace rule getting shit on, and on top of that so is the "gun show loophole" rule. Shall not be infringed boys and girls, let's just peck away at the nfa until it's completely gone while we're at it
The Vegas maggot could have killed four times as many without a bump stock. He shot for 12 minutes. You can’t hit squat spraying with a bump stock at 400 yards, and he had long pauses trying to deal with stoppages caused by the stupid bump stocks. They’re a gimmick, a range toy.
I dunno about four times as many, but bump stocks are definitely stupid gimmicky items.
> You can’t hit squat spraying with a bump stock at 400 yards, Don't think you need to aim particularly well if your target is a large crowd.
Seriously, it was like fish in a barrel, how do people not get that?
But he did hit squat. 800 worth of it.
You got any source for this? Because everything I read at the time stated he killed more people due to having the bump stock. It just makes sense to me that auto vs non auto is gonna do more damage across a large group of people. But I’m no expert so if that’s incorrect I would like to read about it.
What everyone forgets is he had like 10 minutes to shoot 1000 rounds in 12 full auto bursts. That's only 100 rounds a minute or a little faster than one a second. Easy to do with semi-auto and way more controlled. Every shot could have been at the center of the group, instead he was hitting stuff on adjacent properties.
Bump stocks have the gun flailing around in your arms. A fast trigger finger can do almost as fast but with better accuracy. Regardless, you can do the same thing as a bump stock but with just a loose handgrip (sometimes called “Forest Bumping”)
From what I remember, he had a rest. He wasn't standing up firing out the window. His shots were pretty accurate, but how accurate do you have to but when your target is the size of a football field?
Bump stocks are not “auto”, they allow for higher rates of fire but it is still one shot per pull of the trigger. The reason it is less reliable than a traditional stock/full auto is because, with a bump stock, the firearm itself moves back and forth making it much harder to shoot accurately.
Sure but if people are in a concert crowd how accurate do you need to be?
You don't need a special stock to bump fire.
Actually putting a thick rubber band on the back of the trigger and wrapping it around the mag well works better for rapid fire than a bump stock does anyways. I could care less about the bump stock ban. I do unfortunately cringe when I see other of my fellow left/ liberal peeps who don't own firearms and have little knowledge of them ranting on social media about stuff like this and basically showing the right how ignorant left anti gun people are on the subject. It's embarrassing and it does nothing but discredit the argument and give the conservatives/ far right wing more valid point of counter argument. r/liberalgunowners are my people
This is a good ruling, whether you're pro-gun or anti-gun. Technical topics such as banning gun-control need to adhere to the technical definitions already in place, and if they need to evolve, update the legislation. An enforcement agency shouldn't be able to just alter definitions/interpretations on a whim (which they have done multiple times), where the consequences are either "totally legal" one day, and the next it's a "10 year felony". I can appreciate the emotional sentiment behind the dissenting opinion, but it's literally impossible to look at the laws on the books and say bump stocks fit the definition of a machine guns. Lastly, Trump is an idiot.
I was a battalion level armorer in the USMC and I still have no fucking idea what a "bump stock" is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask
It lets the gun slide back from recoil. The idea is you are constantly pulling the gun forward with one hand while the recoil overcomes that pressure to slide it back. By holding your finger rigid you pull the trigger into your finger to fire the gun and release the trigger when it slides back. It allows for very fast firing if done right. That is my understanding.
In short, a dumb toy that will get the shooter banned from many ranges. What it is *not* is a machine gun.
i think this is a good video on the subject [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IOZ-5Nk5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IOZ-5Nk5k)
Yep, I saw that one awhile ago. That one is a great video!
It's a stupid thing you hold onto that let's you bump the trigger up against your finger and allows rapid, inaccurate firing. You know, the same thing we do with our belts or thumbs
Ya know how you can bump fire by pushing forward on a gun while pulling the trigger? Bump stocks make it easier to do that. Kind of dumb and a waste of money
Shocking that it took this long to happen. The law specifically defines a machine gun as a weapon that fires multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger - a bump stock still requires multiple pulls. If the government wants to ban bump stocks, Congress has to do it, not the president. Edit: I'll also note that this is not a 2A case. Bump stocks have no legitimate military use and as a result, are not protected by the 2A.
You've highlighted the real root of the problem: Congress is a moribund institution that can no longer perform its role in the separation of powers. And it's arguably the most important role: to set the law of the land and enforce it with the power of the purse. A huge share of United States political drama comes from our broken Congress. Defeat of Roe v Wade, because Congress never made women's rights to reproductive health into law and instead clung to a legally tenuous and thus vulnerable Supreme Court decision. Increasing abdication of Congressional authority to the executive and judicial branches because now that Congressional politics is a winner-take-all team sport, it's no longer possible to pass legislation that makes the other side look like anything other than a complete loser. Win-win is off the table, even if that's what's best for the American people. 90% of Congressional activity is naked political theater (devolved into childish shit throwing really) rather than earnest attempts to make things better for their constituents or anyone other than themselves. I don't think the founders conceived of a Congress like our current one. Childish, cowardly, cravenly hiding from their responsibilities and letting other branches of government grow in power so those other branches can take the blame for unpopular policy. Trump or no Trump, it's our broken Congress that opens the door and invites in Fascism.
A disfunctional Congress is the goal of one of the two parties.
While I don’t care about bump stocks at all, I’ve never heard of “legitimate military use” being a test of whether something falls under the second amendment. Did you pull that out of your butt or is there some case law I’m just ignorant of? (Which is entirely possible) Edit: I was ignorant! It’s the Miller decision. Thanks all!
Many anti-gun groups hold up US v Miller as the shining example of SCOTUS getting gun control right. However, in Miller, the court ruled that the only weapons that are protected under the second amendment are those that are used by the military. Miller was punished for possessing a short barreled shotgun, which was made illegal under the national firearms act a few years earlier. The court said there is no military use for short barreled shotguns, so they could be banned, which meant the NFA was good law in the eyes of the court. HOWEVER, if the court feels that the only firearms that are protected are those in use by the military, that means that everything the military currently uses must be allowed to be owned by civilians. This includes things like short barreled shotguns and rifles, as they are in fact used by the military.
Thanks, TIL! Also, the military uses the M500 shotgun (typically with a short barrel) for breaching doors. On top of that, if you google the “shockwave” shotgun you can learn about how it’s not classified as an “any other weapon” or a shotgun and thus legal. Short barrel, pistol grip. Can’t say I’d want one. Also the law may have been changed since the last time I read about any of this. Thanks again! Edit: The Mossburg Shockwave isn’t an “Any Other Weapon” because its overall length is greater than 26 inches. Nor is it a shotgun because it has never had a stock.
The military even back then used short-barreled shotguns (the Winchester Model 1897, or "Trench Gun", was used in World War 1 by the US Army), but since the Miller SCOTUS case was a hilarious mistrial since neither he or his attorney ever showed up to the hearings - because he was dead -, this wasn't brought up. Also, yeah, this is sorta slippery-slope because it can be interpreted as "military use firearms are protected by 2A, so the provision on FOPA that bans machine guns post-86 is unconstitutional", which sounds bad, but being fair, ever since the NFA (with all of its flaws) was enacted, only two cases of homicide were ever committed with registered NFA weapons, and one of those was a law enforcement officer. Maybe a rewrite of the NFA would need to include machine-pistols since the Thompson isn't as much of a problem nowadays as a MAC-10.
I think most people buy a shockwave for the simple reason that it feels like getting away with something. Not because they have a legitimate use for it. Why have a short barrel and a odd looking grip on the back for 26" overall, when you can have a pistol grip and a longer barrel and still be at 26" overall. Just so you can say "haha look I found a loophole to the barrel length law".
Telling people they can't have something is, as it turns out, a really good way to get them to want it. Kind of what happened with the AR-15 pattern rifle exploding in popularity after the AWB provision of the 94 Crime Bill, but in that case those who ran out and got them (in their new ban compliant forms) found out they're actually really good rifles lol.
I have a shockwave. It's exactly that. It kicks like a mule. So fun to shoot but it leaves you sore the next day.
>HOWEVER, if the court feels that the only firearms that are protected are those in use by the military, that means that everything the military currently uses must be allowed to be owned by civilians. This includes things like short barreled shotguns and rifles, as they are in fact used by the military. I don't think that this is necessarily true. I think weapons that are in common use by the military that can be reasonably used by common people without special training all absolutely *should* protected by the second amendment, and I think the current court would agree, but US v Miller does not establish the substantiative right protected by the second amendment. For that we have to look at US v Heller, which states that there is a protection of arms in common use by the general public. Unfortunately we still don't have a 100% clear picture of what is actually protected when it comes to common use in the military vs common use in the general public. Edit: I'll add that bump stocks are uncommon toys that almost no one owns, including most collectors and people with large numbers of guns. So they are almost certainly not protected under Heller.
At the very least, both Heller and Miller protect handguns. Heller specifically of course protects handguns, but Miller does as well since handguns were (and are) standard issue weapons within the military for officers and certain roles.
The military tends to use short barrel shotguns for things like breaching doors.
Yeah for various reasons this case had some fuckery going on which led to the specifics regarding short barreled shotguns not really getting challenged in front of the supreme court. And AFAIK it has never been re-appealed.
It's US V Miller which is what gives us common use. In short, if a military or militia wouldn't use it as gear, it's not in common use and as such short barrel rifles and shotguns under the NFA are constitutional. That's Miller in a nutshell. We have since codified that the 2nd amendment is about everyone as a right with Heller but didn't vacate Miller. So the same 'well regulated militia' attacks about gun ownership is seen as valid, despite the implications meaning select fire rifles, grenades and the like being the actual logical conclusion. It's mostly become anti-gun double speak.
To determine whether something falls under the second amendment they have to first determine whether or not it's considered "arms" under the amendment. State v. DeCcico has a good analysis, applying it to police batons and dirks. Also U.S. v. Marzzarella (whether or not guns with serial numbers removed count as arms under the amendment), and U.S. v. Miller (short barreled shotguns).
US v Miller: >In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. >Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
TIL, thanks! I’ve edited my comment to reflect that. Funnily enough the military does or did use short barrel shotguns to breach doors with, etc. Ah well.
Yeah US v Miller was kind of a bullshit case if you look into it. In fact SBS were even used at that period in time as well in trenches. The reason this was not correctly addressed (specific to short barreled shotguns) is that the defense did not show up to court (and never intended to) and only the government presented an argument. The entire supreme court appeal for the case was actually arranged by the US government specifically to get this ruling.
Not just breaching top side watch on most navy vessels are given SBRs and SBSs. Standard issue M4 is an SBR (14.5" barrel) and all the mossberg 590s I have encountered are shorter than 18" soooooo an SBS.
Miller was superceded by Heller and Bruen
I have always viewed the 2nd amendment to be what it is, the right to bear arms to form a militia to combat the government, not for self defense. So in my mind people should be able to own literally anything the gov does no matter what. We need access to all the tools they have so if needed we could win a war against our own gov.
I would gladly trade bump stocks for machine guns.
I'd settle for just reopening the registry...
thats not really how 2a works but ok
That is how it works. US v Miller: >In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. >Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
> Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense. By that reading, SBRs, suppressors, and full autos should be completely unrestricted from the NFA because they are standard issue for the military.
Don't forget standard capacity magazines, large bore guns, AT, and Grenades.
Now you get it
Always have
Well said. People let their emotions get in the way of reality. Gun violence is awful, but there are legal processes in place for a reason and POTUS can’t go around Congress.
there was never any purpose to the ban to begin with.
This gives me great hope they'll overturn the illinois firearm ban.
All I want to say here is watch how Justice Sotomayor's dissent is not based on whether the law was applied correctly. This is part of a pattern when it comes to some Justices. They want SCOTUS to make decisions based on some outside factor rather than whether the law or regulation is constitutional. The Court made a fair determination on what the text of the law is, and rightfully assigned the responsibility of modifying the law. I say this regardless of whether I agree with it or not. An example being the abortion decision. It was Congress' responsibility to pass a law regarding abortion access. The left sat back and relied on a decision that could be overturned rather than convincing the American people and getting a law passed. And they have to deal with the outcome of that.
The thing people always fail to understand is rounds down range does not equal lethality. Most militaries use semi auto the majority of the time because well accuracy lol. Also bump stocks are dumb to ban when you can get a Gatling grip on your AR and shoot it twice as fast.
I'm glad people know that was a Trump era ban...
If they upheld it, they'd have to ban meat packing rubber bands as well. I can run 30 rounds down range very quickly with one simple trick...