Here are some facts which many media outlets are ignoring:
1) It was the Obama ATF - the same Obama ATF that intentionally ran guns to Mexican drug cartels - that approved bump fire stocks in 2010. Under current law they clearly could have gone either way on this. If they had ruled them to be illegal machine gun parts, then the manufacturer would have had to bring legal action to potentially change that. They may very well have lost - and I doubt that they would have brought such a suit for that reason. (This stock falls into a grey area because, effectively, the firearm automatically pulls its' own trigger. Personally, I think, given that the user does not have to deliberately pull the trigger for each shot, these stocks could easily be ruled illegal under current law.)
As you can see in this video, bump fire stocks both
increase the rate of fire to fully automatic levels
and are useless to serious shooters
2) Another kind of device, duplex or binary trigger systems, was also approved by the Obama ATF. This device fires one round when the trigger is depressed and one when it is released. This device, in my opinion, could have been ruled illegal as well. In this case, the question is, "What constitutes a trigger pull?". Without going into all the details, a machine gun is a self-loading firearm that fires more than one round with a single pull of the trigger. In this case, the Obama ATF decided that when the trigger was depressed, that was one trigger pull and when it was released, that was another trigger pull. I'm a Federal Firearms License holder, I have 50 years experience with firearms, and I am mystified by this decision. Maybe there is some language in the law upon which this was based - but I highly doubt it. In common use, the term "trigger pull" means the deliberate movement of the trigger to the rear, not it's release. Of course, in a semi-auto, the trigger must be released and allowed to move forward before it can be pulled again - but that forward movement is not a trigger pull, in my opinion.
Duplex trigger systems also can be fired at rates well above
that typically possible with a true semi-auto rifle,
essentially the same as full auto - but are much more controllable
SO - THE OBAMA ATF LEGALIZED TWO DEVICES THAT CREATE "VIRTUAL MACHINE GUNS" THAT THEY COULD HAVE BANNED. WHY?
Possible answers to that question:
1) Incompetence
2) Horrible legal opinions from in house council
3) A desire to create high casualty incidents that could be used to justify sweeping gun control.
It must be remembered that these decisions came from the same ATF that intentionally sent thousands of weapons to Mexico at the same time as they were blaming US gun laws for the violence in Mexico. I sincerely hope that the answer to this important question is bad legal advice, or incompetence - but I fear that more may have been involved. There is another question: IF THE ATF HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO LEGALIZE THESE DEVICES, WHY DIDN'T THEY ALERT THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS? I fear that the answer to that question is that someone wanted a bloodbath larger than we have ever seen in America.
WHAT ABOUT THE NRA? WHAT HAS BEEN THEIR STAND ON MACHINE GUNS AND VIRTUAL MACHINE GUNS?
1) In 1934, the nation's first federal firearms law was passed. Among other things, it strictly regulated machine guns. The NRA supported this law.
2) In 1986, another federal law was passed that prevented any new machine guns from entering that strictly controlled private market. The NRA supported this law.
3) The NRA has never spoken in support of any of the above devices.
4) The NRA has never reviewed, in any of its' many media outlets, any of the above devices.
5) The NRA bans bump stocks at its' own range.
6) The NRA believes that these devices fall outside of 2nd Amendment protection. If they did not believe this they would not have expressed the following opinion.
7) The NRA believes that they should be strictly regulated.
BLAME THE NRA? I DON'T THINK SO!
No comments:
Post a Comment