Making it up as they go for political posturing
The ATF is looking to classify bump stocks as machine guns:
Tomorrow, ATF will publish an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the application of the definition of machinegun to Bump Fire stocks and other similar devices. As many have feared, it appears that the regulatory agency is soliciting information to help draft a rule which may potentially lump bump fire stocks, binary triggers, etc., within the definition of machinegun.
The law is the law until they say it’s not.
December 23rd, 2017 at 5:53 pm
So a semiauto that fires one round per trigger pull but does it fast might become a NFA item.
This will get interesting.
December 23rd, 2017 at 7:24 pm
So call me stubborn or confused or something but as I understand it ‘bump firing’ is a technique rather than an item. After all, wasn’t the first iteration of that technique done with a shoe lace? Seems to me that the bureaucrats are getting too big for their britches.
December 23rd, 2017 at 7:57 pm
I really don’t give a shit about people’s arguments regarding “sacrificing bump stocks to get something better in return” – there is /literally/ no way to categorize them as NFA items without catching basically every aftermarket trigger, trigger part, trigger assembly, buffer, buffer spring, etc. etc. etc. in the blast radius as well.
Well, no way aside from naming bump stock companies and models by name, and I dare say the BATFE has already learned /that/ lesson.
This should be fought, as stupid as bump stocks are, because the alternative is going to suck.
December 24th, 2017 at 1:48 pm
So if I stick my index finger in the trigger guard and whip it forward and after as fast as I can, making the semi-auto fire as fast is it is possible (you would be surprised just how fast one can do this), does that mean I have to register my finger?
December 24th, 2017 at 3:05 pm
The shoe string method was for Garand style guns where the operating lever cycles with the action. It was first demonstrated on a Mini 14. Of course this means that anyone who possesses a shoe lace owns a machine gun component.
December 24th, 2017 at 5:40 pm
I have a friend who can (and has it on video) fired his Winchester 73 lever action in .38 SPL 10 times in 2.5 seconds with all shots hitting a 12″ steel plate 10 yards downrange. At one spot in the video you can see brass coming out the receiver, above his hat to the front, above his hat about to hit the brim, about waist high behind him and boot top high behind him. And while I can’t get 5 ejected brass in the air at once with an AR, I bet Jerry Miculek can.
And I have two ARs with Timney short reset triggers – but one gun “came that way” from the factory (spec gun from a boutique builder) and one I built myself. So which one is going to be illegal?
December 24th, 2017 at 6:44 pm
It’s not the classification of these devices as machineguns but the classification of machineguns themselves that is the real issue.
The law is the law until *we* say it’s not.
December 24th, 2017 at 8:56 pm
@Jay Eimer, that sounds like what I see being done by Lucas McCain on “The Rifleman” rerun intros on Saturday mornings. I believe he used 44-40 ammo.
December 24th, 2017 at 10:14 pm
I have serious issues with unelected bureaucrats interpreting law. One stroke of the pen and something gets classified as illegal with no checks and balances?
This type of unchecked behavior is what sparked a party in Boston harbor a while back…….
December 24th, 2017 at 11:01 pm
But… but… but, I thought Trump the Uber-mench was gonna save us from all the libtards? We’ve been cuck’d!
December 25th, 2017 at 12:30 pm
If you live in NJ you can see elected bureaucrats change law to make you a felon retroactively…
December 27th, 2017 at 12:18 pm
So what are they going to do with the hundreds of thousands of “unregistered machine guns” that will be floating around?
Amnesty? Amnesty for only certain models? What if you made your own bump stock?
If they change their ruling they will essentially make machine guns legal again. There are too many devices out there like bump stocks to ever round up.
December 27th, 2017 at 4:41 pm
“If you live in NJ you can see elected bureaucrats change law to make you a felon retroactively…”
OR Delaware. DE Dem’s have drafted their own bumpstock ban, with very similar vague as hell language. It makes even simple possession a felony and would make anyone here who owns such a device an immediate felon.
The Delaware bill adds the following language to our Destructive Device class E felon
“A trigger crank, bump-fire device, or any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun.”
December 28th, 2017 at 10:52 am
If this is going about “retroactively” then I wonder what happens next.
All those “Firearms” using the Shockwave Grip from Mossberg and Remington, will they be subject to registration?
What about “stabilizing braces”, will one need to get an SBR Stamp?
But I suppose we had it coming by not actively resisting in 1934, because “the new law only applies to Gangster Guns after all and not any of mine”.