New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- Do you believe that Obama’s ATF was so benevolently Pro-Second Amendment that it approved bump stocks without an underlying anti-gun political purpose for doing so?
Bump stocks were part of the Obama/Biden/Holder/Clinton/Democrat plan to ban all magazine-fed semi-automatic firearms. A goal that now presidential candidate, Joe Biden. still wants to see imposed on honest gun owners.
Bump-stock firing uses the recoil of a semi-automatic firearm to shoot multiple rounds in rapid succession similar to fully automatic, machine-gun fire. By making semi-automatic firearms act significantly more like machine guns, a semi-automatic gun ban would be easier to sell to the gun-ignorant public.
President Trump surgically removed the threat.
Conflating fully automatic firearms with semi-automatic firearms has been part of the anti-gun playbook before the first “Assault Weapon” law was ever passed in the United States. Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director and Founder of the VPC (Violence Policy Center) and mastermind of the “Assault Weapon” issue, wrote the following in his 1988 manifesto, Assault Weapons and Accessories in America:
Assault weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons –anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
From day one, it was shamelessly admitted that the “stupid-public” would confuse semi-automatics with full automatics, which “can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions.” Thankfully, the NRA and Pro-2nd Amendment advocates embarked on a successful public education campaign about semi-automatics and, with time, the public better understand the differences between semi-automatic and fully automatic.
To revive this tactic, however, bump stocks became the new vehicle to push a semi-automatic gun ban. Joe Biden’s current position is to follow through on this end-run gun-ban and he is quite open about it you can read so on his official website.
Biden wants to:
Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act. Currently, the National Firearms Act requires individuals possessing machine-guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles to undergo a background check and register those weapons with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Joe Biden plans to put every semi-automatic rifle into the category of “machine-gun” under the NFA (National Firearms Act). This would ban all future production of semi-automatic firearms, and require every currently existing semi-automatic gun owner to register and pay a $200 tax per gun.
Bump stocks were not the first Obama Administration scheme to ban semi-automatic firearms. Obama has a documented history of trying to do this. Thankfully, his first plan to push a semi-automatic gun ban – the “Iron Pipeline” gambit — failed. There were three parts to this political set up.
First, Obama required multiple rifle reporting by boarder state FFL Dealers. Something not found anywhere in the law. Second, Obama changed the 4473 (Firearm Transaction Record form) to ask whether one was Hispanic or not.
This is the only race that firearm purchasers are subjected to affirmatively admit or deny. (Imagine the reaction if the Federal form required you to affirm or deny being Semitic (i.e., Jewish) or African American?)
Obama’s final step was to push the operation “Fast and Furious.” But after the death of Agent Terry from an Obama-supplied firearm, Fast and Furious became a scandal, the operation blew up in the Obama’s face, and Obama’s Iron Pipeline ploy collapsed.
Bump stocks were the Obama Administration’s last attempt to abolish our Second Amendment Rights. They believed that Hillary Clinton was going to win. After nightly newscasts showing semi-automatics rapidly firing with bump stocks, a sweeping semi-automatic ban could be implemented. Thereby, they would employ Sugarmann’s original approach of “confusion,” only better. They would confuse and scare the public about “machineguns” and obtain a full ban on semi-automatic firearms.
President Trump thwarted their plan. First, by winning in 2016, and second by surgically removing the bump stock strawman as a threat to our 2nd Amendment Rights.
Personally, I believe that fully automatic firearms should not be treated any differently from any other firearm. Politically, however, we have a long way to go to accomplish that goal. Trump’s appointment of originalist judges and justices will help us get there, and proves that Trump is no Obama when it comes to safeguarding our Second Amendment rights. In the meantime, Anti-Second Amendment forces would have gleefully loved to have bump stocks around to fool the public.
Thanks to President Trump, the bump stock strawman was sidelined, and our Second Amendment is less vulnerable to the machinations of those out to destroy our rights.
About Evan Nappen:
Evan Nappen (www.EvanNappen.com) is a criminal defense attorney who has focused on New Jersey firearms and weapons law for several decades. He is the author of the New Jersey Gun Law Guide. Visit his website at www.EvanNappen.com
