US Supreme Court lifts ban on gun bump stocks
bbc.com
bbc.com
The majority believes "function of the trigger" refers to the action of the gun itself - whether one movement of the trigger releases more than one bullet.
The minority argued that if you are exerting constant pressure backwards, that constitutes "a single function of the trigger" and if the gun does a bunch of bouncing around or trickery to turn that into multiple shots it becomes a machine gun.
Both arguments are pretty pedantic, but I am going to side with the majority on this one - as both sides point out, anyone is capable of bump firing guns or shooting rapidly without the aid of novelty devices. And the minority argument that any gun can be a machine gun if you fire it rapidly enough seems like a blank check for the legal system.
If congress wants to ban bump stocks, they need to actually pass a bill and not let the ATF rely on a loose legal interpretation.
But that isn't how it works. The pressure on the trigger has to be varied for the gun to keep firing. She seems to think that keeping your finger in the same place constitutes "constant pressure" but that's simply not true. If there was constant backward pressure, then your finger would follow the trigger when it moves backwards in recoil. In that case, the bump system wouldn't work. To be fair I think she just genuinely doesn't understand this and the majority are partially to blame for overcomplicating it.
With a semi-automatic firearm, you must relieve the pressure/force on the trigger between shots and for that reason it cannot be "a single operation of the trigger". If this fits the definition of "single operation" then you'd only be allowed to fire a semi auto once. Firing it again the following year on your birthday would make it a machinegun.
"There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act."
"Well, they could just pass a law."
No, they can't. The process was designed to obstruct laws being written. That was intended to protect minority interests, but it means that even large majorities cannot pass laws.
And when, after superhuman effort, a law does finally get passed, the Court has nearly unlimited ability to say "No, that's not good enough, either."
The argument is meant to suggest, "Well, all you need is a simple majority. If you can't get that then clearly this is the correct outcome".
Except that it's not a simple majority. You have to pass the House and the Senate, by a filibuster-proof margin, and the President. And that's without taking into account the ways gerrymandering and the way the Senate favors small states. So it's a deception to suggest that we don't get such a law because a majority doesn't want it.
So that opinion is a lie. The Congress can't act, and they know it. That doesn't make their decision wrong, but it does imply that they feel the need to misdirect about it.
If we set that sort of precedence, and the wrong people get appointed to say the department of health, or the department of education then suddenly what is legal and what isn't shifts quickly, and with no recourse.
I don't care about bump stocks, they can make them illegal tomorrow, but it should be done through the same legal channels that our government is based on. And not as a work around because they couldn't get it done in the framework that is agreed upon.
Nothing conspirational there...
And like... there are dozens of restrictive gun laws that rational people should advocate for. Concealed carry should not be available to just anyone; firearms should not be allowed on planes or long-distance public transit, background checks should be mandatory for Uncle Jack buying an anti-materiel rifle, and hunting licenses should continue to be mandatory to prevent overhunting.
Repeating this sort of non-nuanced position is how you get ignored in the grander scheme of gun control legislation
It appears that you seem ill equipped to participate in this conversation effectively if you are unable to discern that the 2A, as well as the other amendments in the bill of rights, are not the source of our rights. They are restrictions on the government that prevents it from interfering or infringing on our natural rights.
Okay. There are also laws that limit your speech on certain topics, but nobody is about to go defend the guy yelling "Fire!" in a movie theater. So natural infringement or not, there's not necessarily a demand to overturn all of these laws.
Naturally speaking you're entitled to a great number of things the law stops you from doing, because deterministic change is not inherently a good thing. We prevent unnatural and harmful actions by outlawing the most egregious violations of our right to self-determination. If you're unwilling to adopt a compromising approach to gun control then I'd argue you're ill-equipped to promote change in a liberal democracy.
"...But those who quote Holmes might want to actually read the case where the phrase originated before using it as their main defense. If they did, they'd realize it was never binding law, and the underlying case, U.S. v. Schenck, is not only one of the most odious free speech decisions in the Court's history, but was overturned over 40 years ago...."
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...