On June 14th, 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court just made their final ruling on the ban of bump stocks. The ban, left over from Trump’s administration, has been ongoing since 2017. Widely recognized as an inappropriate infringement on 2nd Ammendment rights, the ban has ended.
🚨Just in: The Supreme Court has ruled the ATF’s ban on bump stocks is unconstitutional. pic.twitter.com/UtjNuIFnlu
— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) June 14, 2024
Here is an obligatory disclaimer: bump stocks are absurd. Rate of fire and accuracy have an inverse relationship; any time the rate of fire is increased, accuracy decreases. Modern guns are meant to be precision tools and have little purpose if you cannot hit your target. However, if the goal is to quickly turn money into empty brass in the pursuit of ‘sticking it to the man’, I can support the latter part of that cause.
I find it interesting that the gun owners of America and our advocacy groups are celebrating this ruling as a major pro-gun victory, failing to see the broader picture. Our civil liberties are being incrementally and systematically stripped and we are celebrating without recognizing the danger. There should be hard feelings. We should be angry. Yes, this was a seemingly failed government experiment, but they will keep trying. In this instance, the overreach was just a step too far.
In a clarification on the ruling released by Justice Clarence Thomas, he explained that bump stocks still require a trigger pull for every round fired and did not change the firearm into a machine gun. It is incredible that an explanation this simple took nearly 7 years to realize. Except it didn’t. Everyone already knew this. A bicycle doesn’t become an airplane if you add a propellor. This was a blatant ruse to further leftists’ agendas. The ATF, the agency in charge of regulating firearms, knew this too but decided to test the water anyway. They still won. We lost.
The bump stock ban, similar to the pistol brace and short-barreled rifle definition change in 2023, is still a victory for anti-gunners, even if short-lived. Americans who strived to follow these rule changes were quick to register, turn in, or destroy these firearms and accessories. All of these options are high on the left’s agenda. It is important to note that in both cases, the ATF enacted and enforced these rule changes, in the absence of new legislation. Lawmakers turned a blind eye and waited for public outcry to be too loud to ignore, in the meantime, the damage was done.
The ATF is a monster in a category of their own. Their website states that they are a law enforcement agency set up to safeguard communities. However, encouraged by our administration under the battle cry for ending gun violence, the ATF took a backdoor approach to restrict 2nd Amendment rights. Then they changed the rule, or rather manufactured their own interpretation, twice in the last 7 years. As of the bump stock ruling, one of their experiments has ended but it is still in their favor.
I encourage everyone to wake up and stop celebrating. This small infringement is exactly that–small enough to raise the eyebrows of gun owners but not their arms. These are the types of changes that governmental powers prefer to gain further control: minuscule but impactful. They slowly chip away so as not to draw significant attention to what is happening. If allowed to continue, our legal system and sense of freedom will become so warped that it will be difficult to find where we went wrong. An inch should never be given.
References:
- Herlihy, Brianna. “Supreme Court Strikes down Federal Ban on Bump Stocks.” Fox News, June 14, 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-federal-ban-bump-stocks.
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