OK, let’s just be clear: The National Firearms Act is unconstitutional. It is a specific attack on the right to keep and bear arms which is not supposed to be infringed by the government. It is based on Nazi Germany’s gun laws. Second, a bump stock is a device, not a firearm, and the same thing that a bump stock does can be done with a belt loop or simply holding the rifle a certain way. Yet, you were told that you had a friend of the Second Amendment in the White House, something I warned you to be wary about. Now, President Donald Trump and his administration are clearly attacking the Second Amendment. Trump’s ATF is now claiming bump stocks are banned, and acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker signed the new rule. Sadly, that rule acts under the color of law, even though only Congress shall make law.
Here’s a copy of the ATF’s reversal, and just so we are clear, it was Obama’s ATF that approved the bump stocks. It is Trump’s ATF that is banning them.
Now, despite the fact that semi-automatic rifles are still semi-automatic rifles, even with a bump stock, the ATF will consider you a criminal if you still have one in your possession after 90 days. In other words, this is nothing but ex post facto rules, which are null and void under our Constitution.
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No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. -Article I, Section 9, US Constitution
No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. -Article I, Section 10, US Constitution
This kind of ex post facto law is exactly what our founders warned us about, and yes, the Trump administration is passing this off as law because you will be considered a criminal, but constitutionally, the ATF has ZERO authority to write law.
In Federalist Paper No. 84 (4th para), Alexander Hamilton says re ex post facto laws (and of the importance of the writ of habeas corpus):
“…The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny…”
Yep, this is exactly what it is, tyranny.
Now, since Congress cannot lawfully restrict or regulate arms or the right of the people to keep and bear them, the NFA is unconstitutional on its face. Congress was never given such authority. Furthermore, since they were not authorized to write such laws, the Executive Branch is not authorized to enforce them, and since they just killed an entire industry with this measure after saying it was perfectly fine less than ten years ago, I can only conclude that this is a political ploy and that Donald Trump is not what he’s been saying he is, which is something I’ve warned about before too. For all the talk about jobs and the economy, Trump just put the nail in the coffin to an entire industry, and rest assured, bump stocks will now become a black market, and law-abiding citizens will be criminalized.
Luis Valdes points out why this is a dangerous precedent for gun owners.
I believe we should be concerned with the President ordering an agency of the executive branch to effectively re-write a law passed by Congress to mean something completely different than what was originally passed.
The National Firearms Act of 1934, Gun Control Act of 1968, and the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act clearly spell out what is and is not a machine gun.
The National Firearms Act defines “machine gun” as “any weapon which shoots, 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.” 26 U.S.C. 5845(b).
A bump stock in no way meets any of those criteria. And that’s why the ATF approved them for sale back in 2010.
…
If the executive branch can re-write the law by fiat through new regulatory interpretation, unilaterally banning certain types of firearms or firearm accessories, there’s nothing they can’t do. The next administration could declare that all semi-automatic firearms that can fire more than X number of rounds per minute are machine guns. That is no more, or less, arbitrary than the current proposed rule.he
Valdes is exactly right. The problem is to deal with it at the root. Congress had no business writing the NFA in the first place.
I gotta give the Obama ATF credit here. Though they totally engaged in illegal gun running across our southern border, they at least acknowledged that a ban on bump stocks was illegal.
Congratulations, President Trump, you’ve just made yourself an enemy of the people with this measure. What will be next? Outlawing belt loops and fingers and triggers? Or will you just go along with the Commie gun grabbers?
Article posted with permission from Guns in the News
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