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Excellent article. While we're aware of the horrible precedent this has set and understand that it will be abused again later, most won't care until it hits close to their home or wallet.

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One of the few things obama got right. His lack of movement on gun control nationally makes me think he either remembered and respected the history of gun control and how it gutted the democrat party, or less likely he's very secretly one of us.

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Pandora's box for sure, text pasted, worth reading;

What's next on the ban by a stroke of a pen list. . . . . .

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently warned Republicans that if a GOP president can declare a national emergency over a wall on the southern border, the next Democrat president could declare one over gun violence. Her threat envisioned future gun control actions without Congress. But that’s already happening—and it has made a shambles of constitutional lawmaking.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued the Bump Stock Type Devices Final Rule late last year. This criminal regulation retroactively bans ownership of bump stocks, an accessory that helps shooters fire semi-automatic weapons more quickly by bumping the trigger with their finger when the gun recoils.

When the 90-day compliance window closes on March 26, lawful purchasers of some 520,000 bump stocks must have either surrendered their devices or destroyed them. Absent judicial relief, this regulation will convert all remaining owners of bump stocks into felons without action by Congress.

But the various lawsuits pending against the rule are not about guns or gun rights. Rather, these suits ask whether DOJ may create new criminal laws without involving Congress. The Constitution’s answer is a firm no. New criminal laws must clear the twin constitutional hurdles of “bicameralism” (passage by both houses of Congress) and “presentment” (Presidential signature or veto override).

Even a staunch gun control advocate like Senator Dianne Feinstein has recognized that Congress must be the one to act here: “Until March 2018, ATF maintained that bump stocks could not be banned through administrative action. Legislation is necessary to ensure a ban is implemented and regulations are not tied up in court.” Likewise, the Obama Administration faced tremendous pressure from allies to ban bump stocks via regulation but decided that it could not lawfully do so unilaterally. A pen and a phone would not suffice for this.

Nevertheless, current policymakers have defined two allegedly ambiguous terms in the 1934 National Firearms Act in order to ban bump stocks. Despite 80+ years of clarity and dozens of federal cases deeming the statute unambiguous, DOJ is trying to create a loophole in the definition of “machinegun” to fit bump stocks into it. Usually it’s criminal defendants who try such stunts to exempt their machineguns from the ban. This time it’s DOJ claiming ambiguity—and eroding respect for the rule of law.

Worse yet, in this week’s case out of the federal district court in D.C., the judge invoked the Chevron doctrine in deferring to DOJ’s definition of the terms “single function of the trigger” and “automatically.” DOJ’s new definitions are awkward at best, but Chevron poses the more nettlesome problem. This embarrassing precedent tells federal judges to defer to the executive branch’s statutory interpretation whenever the judge decides that a statute is ambiguous and the agency’s interpretation is reasonable. There is not room here for a complete takedown of Chevron, so suffice it to say that the D.C. plaintiffs did not enjoy due process of law when their judge deferred to the other party in the case rather than providing her independent judgment.

Besides which, the Chevron doctrine should not even come into play where a criminal statute is concerned. The Rule of Lenity dictates construing ambiguity in a criminal statute in favor of defendants. And make no mistake; there will be defendants. DOJ has conceded in court that it will use these same definitions to go after any bump stock owners who hold onto their devices.

Therein lies a future injustice. It is practically certain that some number of lawful purchasers will not get the word that bump stocks were banned. They will show up at a gun range to fire one, be seen there by an ATF agent or other law enforcement official and get arrested. The penalty is up to 10 years in prison and a permanent ban on gun ownership. These innocent owners will have no reason to have anticipated a ban—at least not a retroactive one. When Congress banned machineguns themselves in 1986, it did not do so retroactively.

This fact raises two further questions. First, how can a statute that did not ban anything retroactively later be construed to authorize banning bump stocks retroactively? It cannot, at least not when interpreted reasonably. Perhaps the greatest indignity to the Constitution in these cases is the idea that a statute that quite deliberately did not ban machineguns retroactively can be rewritten later by a federal agency to ban bump stocks retroactively. DOJ—and the D.C. district court—rely on the fiction that the statute is ambiguous when it is just silent.

Second, were Congress to ban bump stocks, would it do so retroactively and with the same penalty structure as owning an actual machinegun? History says no, especially since Congress has tried and failed to ban bump stocks several times—and those bills were rarely retroactive.

But DOJ’s loopholing requires it to use the same penalty structure because DOJ knows that courts will not let it get away with altering the length of sentences. DOJ often assures that prosecutorial discretion will prevent injustice. Somehow trust in that is hard to muster when the Department is already mangling the Constitution to rewrite the statute.

Congress is generally not willing to turn law-abiding citizens into felons, because Congress has to face voters. Administrative agencies like ATF and DOJ face no voters and show no such qualms. Bump stock owners risk prison as a result. Everyone else risks the terrifying consequences of allowing DOJ to write criminal laws without Congress. After all, if DOJ can create the bump stock rule, what stops it from bypassing Congress to create criminal laws on other subjects?

Barrels of ink have been spilled criticizing the administration’s national emergency declaration to transfer some funds for building a wall on the southern border. The bump stock ban sets a far worse precedent, yet comparatively little alarm has been raised. No matter one’s feelings about gun control policy, everyone should oppose rapid-fire destruction of constitutional lawmaking. Our liberty is in jeopardy.

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Even Forbes has a better understanding of how hard Trump fucked us than the NRA and some arfcommers.

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He presents Obama as superior because Obama didn't ban bump stocks.  That's Not true.  Obama would have banned everything except for the fact that Obama was lazy and incompetent.

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The Leftists and Anti-Trumpers can use this against him to great effect.

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You'd have to be aiming at the ground to put the constitution in the cross hairs these days

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All you anti-Bumpsters...

Just change the word "bump stock" with "high capacity magazines"...because left unchecked, it will be sooner than you think.

all you guys who went out and raped credit cards and savings accounts buying lower receivers, you invested in vapor.

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What's most appalling to me is not that it is happening but the ease with which it is happening.

These people are truly ruling unchecked. We are nothing more than a tax base to them.

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I am glad to read that there are groups putting up a strong fight against these erroneous decisions by the ATF, stripping away our rights.  Other than the NRA activism sticky, why is there not a forum dedicated to the other groups actually fighting for our rights? Hopefully there is one and I haven’t found it, but a single area with all of these court battles and the groups and people doing the fighting would be nice.  Thanks to GOA and NOLO for all they’re doing.

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The Leftists and Anti-Trumpers can use this against him to great effect.

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One of the few things obama got right. His lack of movement on gun control nationally makes me think he either remembered and respected the history of gun control and how it gutted the democrat party, or less likely he's very secretly one of us.

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What's most appalling to me is not that it is happening but the ease with which it is happening.

These people are truly ruling unchecked. We are nothing more than a tax base to them.

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There was a video posted a while ago of a congress critter speaking on the floor about how legislative branch has gotten lazy and not ruffling feathers by allowing the alphabet agencies do the legislating for them.  making the point that ABC agencies don't have to answer to voters, the heads are appointed not voted in.  so they face no repercussions with their policies and enacting regulations which congress should only have the authority to do.  
If anyone remembers the video, please post It up.  I don't remember who it was that was speaking but it was worth the watch and a good assessment of what is goin on.

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@clayvt  This one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=https://youtu.be/zhRGzr2LMYo

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I know WHY they banned them. Like you mentioned, the too many pews in too short of a time.

I was talking about HOW they banned bumpstocks. They didn't just say, Bumpstocks shoot fast like machineguns so they're illegal." Bumpstocks were on the raw edge of being legal in how the ATF originally determined their functionality as it applied to "single function of the trigger". They just "clarified" what function of the trigger actually meant and "analyzed" the operation of a bumpstock and claimed the continuous application of the shooters force against the protrusion on the stock constituted a single function of the trigger. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am... it's a Machinegun.

I know WHY they want to ban large magazines... but there is a HUGE hurdle of how to do it. They can't just say, "They let you shoot fast so they're a machinegun." There has t be some sort of categorical/technical reason they're being classified as SOMETHING already banned. So tell me, what is it? HOW the magazines get banned.

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I'm more worried about them declaring AR lowers to be machinegun lowers than a declaration that magazines are machineguns.

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If the bump stock ban gets up to SCOTUS, Roberts writes the opinion and in it overturns the ban and Chevron, I'm probably going to lose my account for ceaselessly mocking a lifer.

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The bump stock rule is wrong for reasons unrelated to the 2nd amendment and firearms entirely.

Separately, it is wrong for 2nd amendment reasons.

Make no mistake about it, bump stocks can be legally banned by congress, at least to the extent of newly produced bump stocks. If you disagree with that, you're going to need to get FOPA (or at least 922(o)) overturned to stand a fighting chance in the courts.

The executive branch lacks, or should lack, the legal authority to ban them unilaterally. That is all this is about. Not whether bump stocks are good or bad, or whether you want them or not, or whether they serve a purpose or not. If the executive branch has free reign to rewrite what falls under NFA and 922(o) and what doesn't, then everything is at risk. Full capacity magazines, scoped rifles, semi automatics... nothing is sacred.

Should we win in court and defeat the ban, we will likely still lose bump stocks shortly thereafter. Congress will bargain them away for a better parking spot or 50 meters of border wall or something else. Even so, we must endeavor to do our part in preserving the balance of power between the branches of government. We're the good guys, we are the ones that abide by the laws and ask nothing more than for others to do the same.

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All you anti-Bumpsters...

Just change the word "bump stock" with "high capacity magazines"...because left unchecked, it will be sooner than you think.

all you guys who went out and raped credit cards and savings accounts buying lower receivers, you invested in vapor.

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A lot of us have said from the beginning that it isn't about bump stocks, it's about the precedent (unconstitutional precedent) this President has established, if this is allowed to stand.

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Even Forbes has a better understanding of how hard Trump fucked us than the NRA and some arfcommers.

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What about Drop-in auto sears and Akins accelerator.  Were owners of those compensated?

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Yup.

And done at the direction of our POTUS.
Trump has done a lot of good things but he royally fucked this whole thing up.

Not that legislation by regulation is anything new but....
Hopefully a legal challenge short circuits this whole process and maybe even results in collateral damage to things like the NFA and state level AWBs.
Not holding my breath but....

Quoted: Disgusting that individuals on a gun board spouting the same bs "sorry your girl lost" when anyone with a brain cell saw this coming.

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One of the few things obama got right. His lack of movement on gun control nationally makes me think he either remembered and respected the history of gun control and how it gutted the democrat party, or less likely he's very secretly one of us.

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Yup. We're very quickly reaching the point where everything is illegal at the merest breath from those in power.

Thankfully, that's also the point where you're in for a penny, in for a pound... and MGs will be very common indeed. Why not?

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One of the few things obama got right. His lack of movement on gun control nationally makes me think he either remembered and respected the history of gun control and how it gutted the democrat party, or less likely he's very secretly one of us.

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Fucking horrible precedent.