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Ya know, I may not be a lawyer, but I am a sea lawyer...
Trump’s ATF Playing With Fire in Banning Bump Stocks
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...ng-bump-stocks
Written by Bob Adelmann
The day after retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens called for repeal of the Second Amendment back in March, President Trump tweeted: “THE SECOND AMENDMENT WILL NEVER BE REPEALED! As much as Democrats would like to see this happen, and despite the words yesterday of former Supreme Court Justice Stevens, NO WAY.”
On Tuesday, Trump’s acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said “WAY” by announcing the final rule from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) banning so-called bump stocks. He announced the agency’s rule by claiming that it was an “amendment” of an existing rule and not a new ruling per se and therefore didn’t need Congressional approval:
The Department of Justice is amending the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to clarify that bump-stock-type devices — meaning “bump fire” stocks, slide-fire devices, and devices with certain similar characteristics — are “machineguns” as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger….
The bump-stock-type devices covered by this final rule … will be prohibited when this rule becomes effective [estimated to be March 21, 2019].
A senior official from the Department of Justice made clear that they intended to allow the ATF to enforce the law with every asset they had: “We anticipate that the general public will be compliant with the law. To the extent someone chooses not to comply with the law, we will treat this as we do with all firearms offenses. We will prioritize our resources to maximize public safety, focusing on those that pose the greatest threat. We will enforce the statute based on the circumstances of the individual case as we do with all firearms law.”
There are so many problems with the new “amendment” of existing law that complaints and lawsuits by pro-Second Amendment groups have already been filed.
The first problem isn’t with the president’s apparent hedging on his self-proclaimed undying support for the Second Amendment. It’s with the Amendment itself: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
It’s that word “infringe” that creates the problem with this “final rule”. Infringe is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as “to act in a way that is against the law or that limits someone’s right or freedom.” The Legal Dictionary expands the definition so that no one may misunderstand what the Founders intended:
Infringe (a verb): abuse a privilege, abuse one's rights, advance stealthily, aggress, arrogate, breach, break, break bounds, break in upon, break into, commit a breach, impinge, impose, infract, interfere, interlope, invade, meddle, overstep, seize wrongfully, take liberties, transgress, trespass, use wrongfully, usurp, violate, violate a contract, violate a law, violate a privilege [or] violate a regulation.
It doesn’t matter that there are only about 500,000 bump stocks owned by American gun owners, and so therefore such a “final rule” can be safely ignored by the rest of them. What matters is the precedent it sets if the “final rule” becomes operative in March. If the ATF can arbitrarily declare that bump stocks turn semi-automatic weapons into “machine guns” and therefore fall under the NFA (National Firearms Act of 1934) and the GCA (Gun Control Act of 1968) prohibitions, then what’s to keep them from finding some way to turn semi-automatic rifles and pistols into illegal firearms under those laws as well?
When the initial rule was opened for public comment last spring, the NRA-ILA commented on some of its many flaws. First, Congress (not the ATF) defined the definition of a “machinegun” as “any weapon which shoots, or 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.” So, claimed the NRA, only Congress can change that definition, not the ATF.
Second, that law “sets forth a mechanical test, not a performance-based standard [which instead] focuses on the rate of fire.” Thirdly, this new definition reverses years of rulings by the ATF that specifically claimed that bump stocks didn’t convert semi-automatic firearms into “machineguns.” Said the NRA, “Unmodified semi-automatic firearms have never been considered ‘machineguns’ for purposes of federal law.”
The NRA saw the danger of allowing this arbitrary and capricious ruling to stand: “However ATF proceeds with this rulemaking, it is important that the distinction between semiautomatic firearms and machineguns remains clear. There are tens of millions of semiautomatic firearms currently possessed by law-abiding Americans. Suddenly and retroactively banning them as “machinegun[s]” under federal law would create a number of very serious constitutional, legal, and practical problems.”
A lawsuit filed by three pro-Second Amendment groups in California complained that “ATF’s abrupt about-face on this issue … smacks of agency abuse … in following the law.” It cited a court ruling from 1983 stating that “a sudden and profound alteration in an agency’s policy constitutes [a] ‘danger signal’ that the will of Congress is being ignored.”
The complaint added:
The Final Rule would violate fundamental constitutional protections against retroactive imposition of criminal punishment under ex post facto principles….
What is more, in connection with its failure or refusal to provide for the proper form of public discourse before adopting the Final Rule (as one of the many ways in which the ATF flouted the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act) the ATF failed or refused to respond to Plaintiff’s valid request for pertinent information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
In other words, the complaint charges the ATF with deliberate reluctance to provide the requested documentation on how the agency decided to reverse its decades-long definition concerning bump stocks.
If the Final Rule becomes law in March, the question of its enforcement must be addressed. When DOJ officials were asked directly just how they would enforce it, they responded: “We have no plans to go door to door nor do we have the resources. The Department of Justice primarily relies on voluntary compliance by citizens. Most firearms owners are law-abiding citizens. We anticipate compliance with the law. Those who choose not to comply with the law we will investigate on a case-by-case basis. There is not a blanket plan here.”
That anticipation of voluntary compliance is likely misplaced. When New Jersey anti-gun lawmakers passed a law banning possession of bump stocks in January, their owners were given until the middle of April either to destroy them or to turn them in to authorities. As of early May not a single one had been turned in according to the New Jersey State Police. The concerned lawmakers of New Jersey also passed a “high-capacity” (over 10 rounds) magazine ban in June, and as of December 11, none have been turned in. Apparently, New Jersey’s one-million-plus gun owners don’t own any bump stocks or high-capacity magazines!
The New American reported on the reluctance of law-abiding gun owners to follow similar laws enacted by “the People’s Republic of Boulder,” Colorado. Gun owners in Boulder were estimated to have 150,000 now-illegal “assault weapons,” “high-capacity” magazines and “bump stocks” in their possession. To take advantage of the law’s grandfather clause, those owners had until December 27 this year to get them certified by local police. As of December 1, the Boulder Police Department reported that they had certified just 85 of them.
The ATF under Trump is just begging for a fight by poking law-abiding gun owners in the eye with arbitrary and illegal redefinitions of what’s legal and what’s not. If the Final Rule goes into effect in March, gun owners see the problem: If this rogue agency can, on its own, declare bump stocks to be illegal, what’s to keep this same agency from declaring all semi-automatic weapons illegal as well? That would, as the NRA correctly noted above, “suddenly and retroactively … create a number of very serious constitutional, legal, and practical problems.” (Emphasis added.)
Let's not forget that the "bump stock" entered the mainstream lexicon via the highly questionable Las Vegas shooting. There's been little to no evidence that a bump stock actually was used at all in Vegas and was introduced into the narrative by politicians immediately afterward. I had never even heard of them until Pelosi (iirc) mentioned them.
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul
"We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book
You can rig bump fire with a rubber band. The next false flag uses one so they can go after what they really want: the ARs. A citizen with an AR and high capacity mag is a free man, not a slave.
bump
I'm on a big Pro-gun forum on Facebook and all the Trumpmunchers there are eerily silent after I posted this story. Cognitive Dissonance is a seriously bad drug.
__________________________________________________ ________________
"A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst
President Trump has told a prominent person that he thinks the American people will revolt if the deep state tries to remove him from office via impeachment or any other method because Americans are "too well armed."
infowars.com/show
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
Lawyers for Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), Firearms Policy Foundation (FPC) and the Madison Society Foundation (MSF) have filed a suit, in part naming ex post facto violations as part of their complaint against BATFE, in addition to takings violations, second amendment violations, and fourth amendment due process violations.
GOA and GOF are planning on launching suits as well, based on the same multi pronged list of offenses that I have maintained here, all along.
You can read the actual language of the injunction request at those links.
ETA - Lawyers at the FPC already investigated this and determined that such a ban would, in fact, be a violation of Article 1 Sec 9 Clause 3 in their comments submitted to BATFE back in July of this year.
[t]here can be no dispute that the proposed rule violates the ex post facto
Clause, even though it is a regulatory action because the “sanction or disability it imposes is ‘so
punitive in fact’ that the law ‘may not legitimately be viewed as civil in nature.” United States v.
O'Neal, 180 F.3d 115, 122 (4th Cir. 1999) (quoting U.S. v. Ursery, 518 U.S. 267, 288 (1996)).
pages 33-34 of the above document.
Last edited by Anti Federalist; 12-20-2018 at 01:08 PM.
Now, having set aside the ramblings of Matt Collins, Esquire, here is more important information from GOA on this subject.
For those of you who may have one of these devices, and may be of a mind to "turn them in", then make damn sure you do the following:
1. For those who own or possess a bump stock and want to contact ATF to turn in your bump stock, please realize that the ATF will likely direct owners to sign ATF Forfeiture (Form ATF 3400.1) and/or Property Receipt (ATF 3400.23) forms.
You are not required to sign any form, but if you elect to do so, note the following.
The ATF Forfeiture form is a waiver of your rights and releases ATF from all liability. So read the form -- and talk to your own attorney if you are thinking of signing it! Even if a court later decided against ATF, a person who signed this form would have no claim.
Unlike the ATF Forfeiture form, the Property Receipt form is simply an acknowledgement that ATF has received your bump stock and you no longer possess it. If you plan to turn it in, then get the ATF to sign this form as a receipt and you keep a copy.
https://www.gunowners.org/goa-file-bump-stock-suit.htm
I'm surprised he hasn't told @Danke how to fly yet...I hate to admit it, but this really is a large part of my job now, being a damn sea lawyer, and it's not often I'm wrong about such things.
Last edited by Anti Federalist; 12-20-2018 at 01:10 PM.
In reading the injunction request, I find that this new rule also violates McClure/Volkmer FOPA.
Chris
"Government ... does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms." Wolf DeVoon
"...Make America Great Again. I'm interested in making American FREE again. Then the greatness will come automatically."Ron Paul
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
How is what he said wrong? What he said is so vague, there's no way to pronounce it right or wrong.
If someone gets prosecuted for having bought a bump stock in 2015, then that is a prosecutor treating this as an unconstitutional ex post facto law.
Well, yeah, that's what you heard. But did you catch a glimpse of it on the way over?
The man assumes his election supporters all fell in love with his animal magnetism. And a few of you did. But the people who would fight to protect him are the people who know he kept his promises. And he has kept damned few if those.
If he wants to be fought for, he has, as Frost put it, promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone made a second-hand comment about a[nother] silly and grandiosely self-regarding thing Trump supposedly said about himself. Big whoop.
And dannno, of course, thinks we're supposed to find something meaningful and dispositive in such masturbatory ejaculations (such as proof of Trump's undying devotion to the right to keep and bear arms). Big surprise.
Last edited by Occam's Banana; 12-20-2018 at 02:00 PM.
The *WHOOOSH* was that you think Trump is going to disarm you, when in fact he is under the impression that armed citizens will come to his defense if the deep state tries to take him out.
Trump isn't going to disarm you.
I've talked a lot of $#@! on this bumpstock issue, I doubt they will be banned and if they are a court decision will reverse it.. But it turns out a rubber band is just as effective as a $200 bump stock. So it is all irrelevant. All this whining nonsense is irrelevant. If you think Trump is going to disarm you, he isn't, because the people he would be disarming are his supporters and that just isn't going to happen.
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
"He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
"dumpster diving isn't professional." - angelatc
"You don't need a medical degree to spot obvious bullshit, that's actually a separate skill." -Scott Adams
"When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q
"Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul
"Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."
You have talked a lot if $#@!. Like claiming you have any way to know how court cases will come out. Like claiming you know what Trump's really thinking because you parse his tweets religiously (even though you're the first to admit he can be misleading). Like assuming he values his many broke supporters more than the few bankers who keep him in limousines, gold plated plumbing and porn stars.
But perhaps nothing illustrates the fact as well as your contention that a rubber band is "just as effective" as a bump stock. Have you used both? Which produced a higher rate of fire for you? Have any first-hand tips for us to get maximum reliability?
I know one prefers to put his life on the line for someone who has actually earned that devotion. Of course, you think a rubber band works as well as any other method of achieving full auto fire, so clearly this is all academic to you--the only front lines liable to see you are at the counter of the pot dispensary.
freedomisobvious.blogspot.com
There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.
It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.
Our words make us the ghosts that we are.
Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.
I have never said (let alone thought) that Trump is going to disarm me. As I have repeatedly said, Trump is merely a half-assed wannabe gun-grabber. I have been calling him "half-assed" precisely because he seems likely to fail. So *WHOOOSH* yourself ...
The only whining and irrelevant nonsense in this thread (which prompted my participation in it, not the belief that Trump is going to disarm me) is the ludicrous notion that Trump's bump stock shenanigans are some kind of chess-mastery MAGA-fu designed to forestall any further gun control efforts by the Democrats. It isn't (as I said before, you do not get to have it both ways). The most charitable explanation of it is that there is absolutely no point to it at all, other than playing with fire. And then, of course, there's your asinine fellation of Trump as the "only thing keeping this country from being disarmed" - but that is in a class of such sheer and utter nonsense as beggars description ...
The most sensible explanation of it is that it is just the drunken monkey flailings of a half-assed wannabe gun-grabber who's too chicken$#@! to "go all the way" - because if he does, he'll expose himself beyond the ability of his Kool-Aid drinkers to Trumpslain their cognitive dissonance away. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to think that Trump wouldn't be just as happy to implement his well-documented previous approval and support for gun control measures that are much more draconian than banning bump stocks, if he thought he could get away with it. IOW: Trump is just another mealy-mouthed, double-talking politician who doesn't give a $#@! about anything but trying to make himself appear to be "great" in the eyes of his supporters ...(you know, like the ones that are supposedly going to rise up in armed rebellion if he is impeached because he is such a magnificent champion of gun rights ... talk about "nonsense", LOLOLOL ...)
freedomisobvious.blogspot.com
There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.
It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.
Our words make us the ghosts that we are.
Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.
They may have it wrong, depending on what the policy or law actually says. To wit:
- I buy a bumpstock, but dispose of it 1 week prior to law going into effect
- Law goes into effect
- Theye arrest me for having owned the bumpstock prior to enactment
This is different from:
In both cases what Theye do is felonious, but the precise nature of how it all comes about is subtly different.
- I buy stock
- Law goes into effect
- Theye take me away
There is some question as to whether ex post facto and refusal to "grandfather" is in any way different, practically speaking. I say they are not. Disingenuous $#@!s will say otherwise. Humans.
I say let the killing commence, that we may settle these stupid issues once and for all. This bull$#@! went full-boring at least six thousand years ago.
freedomisobvious.blogspot.com
There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.
It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.
Our words make us the ghosts that we are.
Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.
Well put.
Trump is a very mixed bag. He has done some things that are pretty good, given the current standards of general political action. In other considerations, he's not be so good, and this issue is one of them.
It isn't (as I said before, you do not get to have it both ways). The most charitable explanation of it is that there is absolutely no point to it at all, other than playing with fire. And then, of course, there's your asinine fellation of Trump as the "only thing keeping this country from being disarmed" - but that is in a class of such sheer and utter nonsense as beggars description ...
That may not be the case. He is a man, not a god. Unlike myself, he probably has a relatively narrow view of certain issues, like freedom. That he $#@!s certain things up may not be a reflection of any inherent evil, but of a certain mindset on a given matter.IOW: Trump is just another mealy-mouthed, double-talking politician who doesn't give a $#@! about anything but trying to make himself appear to be "great" in the eyes of his supporters
In any event, it is irrelevant if the result of his good intentions is further violation of the rest of us.
Freedom is the only solution and people are quite fully uninterested. Too much work, all around.
Humans.
freedomisobvious.blogspot.com
There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.
It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.
Our words make us the ghosts that we are.
Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.
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