286
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
286 points (98.3% liked)
News
23305 readers
3638 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
While I have not followed this case or read this ruling, bolded section would appear to be true (maybe, I can think of reasons that it could be seen differently). However, that doesn't mean that bump stocks are legal. It just means that the case before the court was to decide whether a bump stock turned a semiauto into a "machine gun."
It would be elementary to make bump stocks illegal, because bump stocks are not firearms. Making bump stocks illegal wouldn't cross the Second Amendment.
Correct. The issue was that the ATF tried to do an end-run around the legal process. Somebody in there did not watch that Schoolhouse Rock song about how bills become law... All that has to happen (federally, anyway) is that Congress must pass a law prohibiting them and the president has to sign it. But that's not what happened. The ATF -- under Trump's direction, mind you -- tried unilaterally to redefine an item that is not a firearm as a regulated firearm. What is and is not a firearm (and what is and is not a "machine gun" also) is already codified into law.
You can argue for or against unelected agencies having the ability to create new regulations with the force of law behind them without involving the usual system of checks-and-balances, but specifically in the case of the ATF they have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not able to use such a privilege in good faith. They would be (and are) exceedingly likely to use it as a cudgel to play these "legal yesterday, felony today" types of games with people so give themselves excuses to kick in doors and shoot people's dogs.
Various state laws already prohibit bump stocks. My state is one of them.
I've followed it and the first paragraph is spot on. But I'd argue something doesn't have to be a firearm to be protected, see Caetano v Massachusetts. It probably would also protect other items adjacent or necessary for the intended purposes of the amendment; like some types of ammo, parts, or accessories. If bumpstocks fall into that is another question though. Reading the tea leaves it doesn't seem like it.
So if I make a device that spins and presses the trigger for me, then it's not illegal, got it.
Yes. Already exists, too:
https://www.tacticalinc.com/catalog/product/id-1247
It wouldn't be considered a "machine gun" or fully automatic. Small distinction but necessary.
Bump stocks allow for the trigger to be activated multiple times by a mechanjcal device with a single (human) pull of the trigger. The person is not pulling the trigger multiple times, even though the trigger is being moved multiple times.
I know the whole thing is pedantic legalese, but it is like saying mechanically activating a trigger rapidly with a motor activated with a single button press would be legal.
The NFA says "by a single function of the trigger". A button that activates a trigger rapidly with a motor would be legal, because the act's definition is limited to the function of the trigger, not the action of the controller or the mechanics of the activation. Like it or not that's the law as it stands, and that's the only definition that matters unless and until we elect a majority of Congressional representatives who want to change it.
~~In that scenario the button is the trigger. Trigger is being used not to describe a curved piece of metal you put your finger on but the input device. The oral arguments had a lot around that issue.~~
See the reply below
That's not actually true. It's certainly a trigger, but it's not the trigger of the firearm. The trigger assembly responsible for activation of the hammer and firing pin would remain unaltered, but the button would activate some kind of rotating and/or vibrating apparatus which engages the trigger assembly over and over and over in rapid succession. They go into a lot of detail about this in the opinion, including the definitions they're referencing with the word "trigger" (pp 7-14).
You're correct went back and reread it:
Although it sounds like there maybe be edge cases where specially designed firearms are treated differently if they lack a traditional mechanism.
I think you're right. I don't think we're far removed from a computer being attached to a firing pin such that electrical impulses cause microvibrations which force a firing pin into a cartridge with unimaginable rapidity. In that case, there'd be no trigger mechanism at all except a button and a microprocessor, and so our definitions will have to adapt rapidly to avoid unimaginable bloodshed.
Extending the traditional trigger’s function by adding more and more complex Rube Goldbergian designs just moves where and how the trigger starts.
I dunno about a servo/motor interface being legal, ATF went to and fro over the Akins Accelerator in the mid 2000s before they decided that it is a machine gun because it added springs to provide the reset - thus in their view it became integral to the gun like a drop in auto sear, and falls under the ‘single function’ test.
The conservative majority that spent pages using circular logic to determine what a trigger is were wrong, and this quote is a prime example.
Edit: Hot damn, the dissent is an excellent tear down of how terrible the logic used in the majority opinion is.
I believe it is. So are crank triggers, which clamp on to your trigger guard and click the trigger for you 2/3/4 times per revolution.
Which by any logical definition makes the crank (or the bumpstock) the trigger, since it is what is used to trigger the mechanics of the weapon.
I guess there i some precedent where a thing attached to a gun doesn't count as part of the gun?
I ain't bringing logic into it, I'm just pointing out how the law has been interpreted.
Attaching things to guns that enable fully automatic fire as it is defined by the law, i.e. more than one shot per activation of the trigger, do count, though. This includes things such as full auto sear or those fucking "Glock switches" that are so popular these days.
With a crank trigger you have to keep cranking it to keep firing, like an old wild west Gatling gun. You can't just hold it down and the gun dumps the magazine on its own. A bump stock aids the user in rapidly pressing the trigger over and over again. You can bump fire a rifle even without a bump stock if you are sufficiently practiced or skilled.
Right, that's the kind of thought I was having with my "maybe" clause. The operator of the rifle is arguably a mechanical part of the automatic trigger pull when a bump stock is employed, because the operator is not willfully choosing to pull the trigger each individual time. The trigger is being actioned by a mechnical process outside of the conscious will of the operator.