ATF Returns Bump Stock After Five Years
Bump stocks are no longer illegal. They never should have been, but the ATF decided they would be and we didn’t have any real say in the matter. Sure, there was a comment period, but does anyone really believe the ATF actually pays attention to what anyone says during that time?
But thanks to Cargill, the regulation–can we really call it a law?–is as dead as Trump’s would-be assassin.
And now, the ATF has returned at least one bump stock to its rightful owner, David Codrea.
Codrea bought the bump stock explicitly to challenge the law–he didn’t even own the model of gun that particular stock was designed for–and I get that. I respect it, even. The truth is that the rule was never right or constitutional, particularly with how it was foisted onto the American people.
Oh, I get the rationale for doing it that way. Congress was in the process of passing a much more restrictive measure and a lot of Republicans were signing on in the wake of Las Vegas. This minimized the damage.
But political considerations are one thing, the Constitution is another.
Even a congressionally passed law would have been unconstitutional. That would have been challenged in court and probably overturned as a gross overstepping of congressional authority.
For now, Codrea got his gun back and he notes above how even the ATF agents understand how ridiculous it is for something to be legal, then illegal, then legal again, then illegal again. It’s stupid and we all know it. How could they not know it?
I’m disappointed that so many people forfeited theirs. I get the business doing it, mind you, because you don’t want to have to keep paying taxes on inventory you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to sell, but I’d have liked to see more people not forfeit their stocks so as to make a point.