Please Tell Me Why

As some say, its a slippery slope when you start to ban firearm related items. Do you ban sales, possession? Confiscate those in circulation, buy them? Make people who don't turn them in criminals? Might a shooter with a semi auto, a good scope and some training have done even more damage over 9 minutes? My state has banned HCMs and many modern sporting rifles..assault rifles they are called even tho semi auto. I hold my breath re what comes next once the state legislature got a taste of banning these things. Personally, i think these bump fire devices are worthless and should not have been approved by ATF to begin with, and i would not have missed them if they had not been marketed, but now that they are on the market it might be wise not to rush to ban them as there are many who feel about semi auto rifles as you do about bump fires or those trigger devices. I hate the logic, but it seems sound. There is also the wuestion whether the device is protectable under 2A or outside its protection. My best judgment says stay out of this thread but here it goes anyway.

It is the two sided coin: Freedom balanced with responsibility. Abuse of either descends into license: licentious behavior produces anarchy in the abuse of freedom, or totalitarianism in the abuse of responsibility. On principle, one can also question why some states are class III states and some are not. Human nature demands freedom at the personal level, but only grudgingly applies responsibility to that freedom - thus we have the law, an external and artificial limitation for those who are unwilling to apply an internal limit. Still, some will deliberate and choose to violate the law. The law prevents little, but allows for punishment.

Tragedies such as have recently occurred raise innumerable questions, but any legislative activity that is caused by such tragedy is crisis legislation at best, abuse of power at the worst. It seems that we lament violence of all types, but as a society, fail to learn from any of it. It something is predictable, it is also preventable.The full investigation of the Las Vegas incident will reveal that the perpetrator gave many hints that something evil was about to occur - all of which were dismissed or ignored. The same with all tragedies: they consist of many elements. Remove even a single of those elements, and the tragic house of cards collapses.

We also touch upon the larger question of free will and the problem of evil. Scripturally speaking, man fell from grace very early on. Genesis 3 in the bible. Where is the first violent crime recorded after that fall, and what was it?

Murder. 18 verses later (Genesis 4). Cain and Abel.

I remember several years back when I walked into a local gun shop that was pushing the bump stock at me hard.. demonstrated it for me live fire. Said that “I should buy one while I can before it’s banned.”
I saw it as a useless waste of ammo at best and highly dangerous in the wrong hands. The thought went through my mind that day that the device would only serve a bad purpose. I did not want it.

Rick .. I’m with you. A civilian doesn’t need that kind of fire power.
I feel extremely grateful to live in a country that allows me to collect and keep firearms, which serves as my hobby and also allows me to protect myself. I don’t need an automatic weapon or simulated auto fire weapon to protect myself and my family from criminals.

The automatic weapon, or a firearm made to fire as an automatic weapon , simply allows a crazed person to do too much damage in a very short amount of time, and much harder to stop them, pure and simple.
The auto weapon is a weapon of military need, not civilian. I think that’s where America has drawn the
line in the past for what’s legal and not legal, and it should remain. I don’t see how the bump fire mechanism is or was allowed.
I think that ol saying applies to the the bump fire -
“There is no right way to do the wrong thing”.
To me there is too great a risk of it being used for mass destruction.

Rick brings up a valid point and some of the responses are talking around it.

Modern Sporting Rifles are semi automatic rifles not select fire military rifles. The current law establishes that select fire or full auto only requires a Class III. So how can one argue that a $99 add-on accessory that's sole function is to increase rate of fire to full auto levels should be approved by ATF? This is a question I am interested in hearing the ATF answer.

The only issue here is rate of fire with the absence of a Class III license. Not number of guns owned, not mag capacity, not semi-auto vs single shot, not trigger locks, not bio-identity.....Simply rate of fire. And quite honestly there is very good "common-sense" test for that. If you were at the gun range and the guy down the way was firing and you mistook his rate of fire as full auto, he should have a Class III.

Whether or not you think Class III requirement should be repealed is a different topic all together.

Boys, please.
The thing is a non-firearm that does not alter the way the firing mechanism operates. The rifle operates as a semi-auto, auto loader. No class II issue.
It is a range toy that enables the user to burn up a lot of ammo and make a lot of noise.
It has no real practical application.
I know this to be true, because I installed one on one of mine when it first became available. It wastes ammo.
I haven't run it since I made it work once.
I can also bumpfire my .45 real easy if I want to. Maybe we should ban belt loops.

Kneejerk legislation is forever and always an error made in the name of whoever wants to be re-elected. It never represents the interests of the citizen at large; it only gains traction for the eventual total abolition of the BOR, with the intent of empowering the central government.(read: to strip & subjugate the citizen, and establish 'rights' of the government, in complete controversion of the intent of the FFs.)

You all must recall the GCA of '68.
You know.... The pointless load of bleep that we must live with to this very day?
We came to within a nanocron of having all handguns banned, if any of you were paying attention.
We narrowly kept our pistols & revolvers in a trade off for SBRs & SBSs.
All the NFA crap came with that little piece of legislative brilliance.
Thank you Ted Kennedy. (Deceased)

What say we punish a few criminals already in violation of existing law?

az_colt said:

Modern Sporting Rifles are semi automatic rifles not select fire military rifles. The current law establishes that select fire or full auto only requires a Class III. So how can one argue that a $99 add-on accessory that's sole function is to increase rate of fire to full auto levels should be approved by ATF? This is a question I am interested in hearing the ATF answer.

Click to expand...

The standard is one pull of the trigger and what it does. With a traditional machine gun the trigger can be pulled once and multiple rounds are fired, with a bump fire stock the trigger is pulled once for each round that is fired as the "gun" is moving in the stock. Although this seems like a minor difference the standard has been established over many years by the BATFE technology branch. In my biased opinion it's a very difficult operation to define, at one point in the history of regulation a shoe string could have been defined as a machine gun.

I really understand your point and it's hard not to agree with your observations, but by definition the bump fire stock likely is not a machine gun and therefore not regulated under current law. As the owner of registered machine guns I have to wonder if the current legal status of bump fire stocks make sense. It's a slippery slope as pointed out elsewhere, but given the relative success of virtually eliminating the used of machine guns in criminal activities with federal regulation it certainly seems that if the regulations were applied to bump fire stocks this type of crime may have been prevented.

I am not for more regulation, but I will support better regulation whenever possible.

Oberon: Understand your concern and could offer strong argument that current requirements for limitation of full auto are unnecessary. Your concern about the BOR and gun grabbers is real. In fact it is so real, that gun owners need to think clearly on this situation.

You description of the Bump Device having no practical application is a liberal politician's dream:
1. It doesn't alter the manufacturer configuration or operating mechanism
2. It has not hunting or sporting purpose
3. It does nothing to increase the safety, accuracy or reliability of the firearm

Therefore, by default the only purpose is to increase the rate of fire to a level that can be confused with full auto rates of fire which are restricted. I live in AZ for a reason. I am a Life Member of the NRA for a reason. I actively supported personally and financially candidates that would repeal the assault weapons ban for a reason.

I don't forsee many politicians that will argue that Bump Devices have a practical application when folks like us can't make that argument either. This is a losing argument and it may be wise to give up a Bump Device and not let the gun grabbers ban all Semi Autos like the American College of Physicians just recommended. A big fight is coming and strong 2A supporters like us need to stay a couple moves ahead.