Bump Stocks

[woodchip]

I know I'm re-visiting a older news event but I finally got around to looking into the issue. Now I've been around firearms all my life and had never heard of bump stocks and what they do until the LV massacre. Let me go on record as not thinking the idea of buying such a gizmo should be legal. As such slicks earlier snarky comment of somehow I had blood on my hands in relation to the LV shootings is without merit. Lets look at who really has blood on their hands. in 2010 the ATF ruled bump stocks did not make a semi-auto into a fully auto weapon and thus were freely able for people to buy and sell them. Since the ATF is part of the presidents administration and Obama was President at the time, sole responsibility rests on his shoulders that bump stocks were able to be bought by the LV shooter. And slick, since you donated to his election and claimed personal conversations with the man I would say the real person here with blood on their hands is you for supporting Obama and his administration.

[Tunnelcat]

How about some history woodchip. Bump Stocks were supposedly created for disabled people. In reality, it was a cover excuse to get the ATF to accept a new type of AR-15 stock.

https://mic.com/articles/184982/bump-st ... being-used

https://www.slidefire.com/downloads/BATFE.pdf

But the real reason was to give people the enjoyment of almost full auto firing with a semi-auto weapon.

https://www.ammoland.com/2016/08/slide- ... z4uYktG1Ot

They would have been outlawed along with assault weapon in the Assault Weapons Ban bill brought forth in 2013 by Dianne Feinstein, but it was ultimately defeated on a 60/40 vote, which included ALL the minority party Republicans and 15 Dems at the time. It couldn't have passed even IF those 15 Dems had changed their vote because they would've been short by 5 votes with their at that time bare majority. Those 15 Dems were also mostly from red states who surely wanted to hang onto their seats. I'm betting if they'd voted for passage, every rural gun lover in those red states would have kicked them out on their rears post haste during the next election.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/15-democ ... d=50275295

[woodchip]

Whatever your mitigating evidence, fact is it was the Obama admin that approved the stocks. Contrary to your example of the votes needed it was still the ATF's purview to ban the bump stocks and Obama could have directed them to do so.

[vision]

He out of office and Woodchip is still losing sleep over Obama. What a sick obsession.

[Tunnelcat]

Whatever your mitigating evidence, fact is it was the Obama admin that approved the stocks. Contrary to your example of the votes needed it was still the ATF's purview to ban the bump stocks and Obama could have directed them to do so.

It wasn't Obama's fault. In fact, he was vehemently anti-gun. But I seriously doubt Obama even knew about the application to the ATF for approval of this new product, the bump stock. It's not even a gun and it certainly couldn't be called a machine gun. That's not something a president has the time to deal with either. I'm also wondering how many Bush holdovers were still present in the ATF during Obama's tenure as well? It was well known that Bush spent the time and effort to stuff his hand-picked cronies clear down the the civil servant level of the government. And don't forget the constant meme from the right that ran through social media at the time, that "Obama's going to take away your guns!", which was patently false and nothing but nutty fear-mongering.

So what actually happened was that the ATF followed the letter of the law when they reviewed the application and approved the bump stock. Those weren't Obama's laws. These were regulations and laws formed and created during the constant machinations of the lobbyists, the NRA, Congress, the courts and SCOTUS, who approved these laws and regulations with the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution as the framework. So guess who's mostly responsible for creating and lobbying for these laws and regulations that the AFT had to follow all through the years? Why, you should be thanking the conservatives in Congress and the NRA.

From the horse's mouth of the person who was responsible at the ATF during that time and who actually reviewed the application:

https://www.thetrace.org/rounds/atf-bum ... e-gun/amp/

Vasquez, who was assistant chief of the ATF’s Firearms Technology Branch at the time, said the idea that the Obama administration was involved in the approval process doesn’t make any sense. For starters, he said, Obama advocated for more gun regulation, not less.

He insisted his team did what it always did: tested the product; consulted applicable laws, including the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the National Firearms Act; and wrote an evaluation. “It was a monumental job,” he said.

Vasquez said that agency higher-ups also weighed in, though he does not recall exactly who. In any case, he said, no one up the chain of command disagreed with his team’s initial ruling. The bump stock could not be classified as falling subject to federal law banning the sale of new machine guns.

[Grendel]

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... etter.html

[Tunnelcat]

The new right wing meme, if you do any recent search, is to blame Obama, and my default the ATF, for the existence of the bump stock. It's a lot more complicated than conveniently placing blame on either Obama or the ATF, because neither of them created the system nor the current regulations and laws that are being used. Thanks for finding that Grendel.

[woodchip]

The new right wing meme, if you do any recent search, is to blame Obama, and my default the ATF, for the existence of the bump stock. It's a lot more complicated than conveniently placing blame on either Obama or the ATF, because neither of them created the system nor the current regulations and laws that are being used. Thanks for finding that Grendel.

Tell me TC are you so generous in forgiving Trump as you are Obama?

[Spidey]

The average person could probably build one of those things...

So trying to keep them away from the wackos...is probably a moot point.

[Top Gun]

In which woody blatantly ignores the drooling rednecks and NRA cock-suckers to keep stroking his Obama hate-boner. Must be that time of the month again.

[woodchip]

The average person could probably build one of those things...

So trying to keep them away from the wackos...is probably a moot point.

actually the average person with a file could make a semi-auto into a fully auto, so lets just make machine guns legal.

[woodchip]

In which woody blatantly ignores the drooling rednecks and NRA cock-suckers to keep stroking his Obama hate-boner. Must be that time of the month again.

As unintelligent a reply as usual.

[Krom]

Yeah, seems like these stocks are only legal on a technicality. What is it: "Breaking the spirit of the law if not the letter."?

[Top Gun]

In which woody blatantly ignores the drooling rednecks and NRA cock-suckers to keep stroking his Obama hate-boner. Must be that time of the month again.

As unintelligent a reply as usual.

Not denying it then?

[Tunnelcat]

The new right wing meme, if you do any recent search, is to blame Obama, and my default the ATF, for the existence of the bump stock. It's a lot more complicated than conveniently placing blame on either Obama or the ATF, because neither of them created the system nor the current regulations and laws that are being used. Thanks for finding that Grendel.

Tell me TC are you so generous in forgiving Trump as you are Obama?

First off, you know full well Obama had nothing to do with this one, nor could he have changed the laws if he had known about it. Every Republican and Democrat from a Red State and the NRA would have fought any change or revision to the ATF regulations tooth and nail anyway. Unless of course, the Vegas shooting had happened on Obama's watch, but even then, I'm still betting not. This particular meme is going around courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, who's even had the balls to say that Obama "made bump stocks legal". That's an outright lie and he knows it and YOU should know it.

Secondly, I haven't forgiven Obama, OR Trump for that matter, because I'm still going to have to pay a fine for not having the required health insurance this year, despite Trump's early and splashy show of an EO saying that he was telling the IRS to ignore whether people checked or didn't check that little box on their tax forms come 2018. Well, it seems that the IRS is NOT ignoring it nor are they GOING to ignore it come this next tax time despite the EO. Besides, Congress likes the dough and can't seem wean themselves off this the extra windfall that they're taking from me and millions of other individuals who are in the same straights, so they obviously don't truly give a damn about everyone's health care.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/0 ... ent-237937

And I have to ask, how can you choke down and make cover for all the crap we're getting from a clearly narcissistic, mentally ill, paranoid, egomaniac bully of a president who's seems to love to coddle the Russians? Trump STILL hasn't started enforcement of those Russian sanctions that Congress passed long ago and were supposed to go into effect on October 1st. Anything else he's done has been mostly for himself or to sit there on the couch at 3:00 AM tweeting out a storm in order to sow false discourse and hatred towards those who he thinks are after him, towards people from both parties mind you.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/29/se ... s-law.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKCN1C42YF

He's even gotten his Chief of Staff, John Kelly, who's a 4 Star General for cripes sake, to LIE for him during a press conference! Good God!

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/browa ... story.html

Plus, he hasn't done anything for the benefit of our country. Name ONE thing? I'm not talking about all that getting rid of anything and everything having to do with Obama's legacy (and he botched one of those since he couldn't even get get rid of Obamacare). I want something he's done that's his own idea, that isn't just for himself and has benefited the PEOPLE.

[Grendel]

[Ferno]

Holding Obama as an accessory to the LV shooting.

I'd laugh if it weren't so pathetic.

[Burlyman]

Guns don't kill people...

[Top Gun]

Right, the bullets that come out of guns do.

[Tunnelcat]

You still have to have some stupid jerk pull the trigger....or steer a vehicle onto a sidewalk...or grab a knife from a kitchen drawer and slice up someone. Guns may make it easier and quicker to kill, but it still takes human intent and action to do the actual dirty deed. We really need is to fix the human part of this deadly combination.

[Top Gun]

Or maybe we make by far the most portable, convenient, and effective means of doing said deed much harder to do for those who shouldn't be using them.

[Tunnelcat]

There's that, I'll have to agree. But people who want to kill other people will still find some creative way to do it.

[Top Gun]

Yes...ways that are generally far less effective and easier to stop. Like, how is this a difficult concept? It's like claiming that cops shouldn't stop people driving 50 over the speed limit just because everyone drives 5 over.

[Spidey]

Yea, large trucks running down people are just sooooo easy to stop, so are bombs...

[vision]

Yea, large trucks running down people are just sooooo easy to stop, so are bombs...

They are. There are far fewer bomb attacks than gun attacks. Explosives are highly controlled and hard to obtain, and even mixing easily available compounds is not easy. Also, urban panning can reduce vehicle attacks. In a civilized society we employ countermeasures and work toward security instead of saying "oh well, someone will always find a way to kill!" F-u-c-k that
weak-minded bull★■◆● thinking.

[Top Gun]

Seriously. You stop. What. You can. And we aren't remotely close to doing that when it comes to firearms. When you have a psycho able to amass a small country's worth of guns and shoot dozens, something is severely fucked up.

[Tunnelcat]

Guns don't hold the top death rate record anyway, so why are we worrying about how many people die each year because of shootings? Drug overdoses have taken over as the deadliest scourge, especially overdoses of opioids like the illicit Heroin, or the legally prescribed drugs like Hydrocodone and Oxycodone that get into the black market. The synthetic versions are even deadlier, especially Fentanyl. So why do we sit here and debate about whether or not we should control guns in order to stop shootings, when the bigger problem right now staring us in the face is the abuse of legal and illegal opiates, which are fast becoming the biggest killer of Americans by far.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... explainer/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drug-overd ... than-guns/

[vision]

How many murders are the result of ingesting drugs? Keep your perspective.

[Tunnelcat]

Death is death, whether accidental or intentional. What's the difference?

[Spidey]

Guns are more of a political issue.

[Tunnelcat]

Guns are more of a political issue.

You mean like gun control is always part of the Democratic platform and drug control is always part of the Republican platform and so all either party does with those 2 inviolate positions is to use those as political cudgels to club the American electorate into agreeing their point of view and gain power, all the while nothing ever gets solved?

[Spidey]

Pretty much.

[vision]

Death is death, whether accidental or intentional. What's the difference?

Are you serious? You don't think culturally we should differentiate between murder and other ways to die? Keeping people safe from harm, whether from accidents, sickness, or malice requires different types of solutions. Are you against seat belts in cars? If you die, you die, right?

[Krom]

You know, if we swapped the legality of drugs vs guns, just imagine how much violent crime would drop, it would be enormous.

[Tunnelcat]

Death is death, whether accidental or intentional. What's the difference?

Are you serious? You don't think culturally we should differentiate between murder and other ways to die? Keeping people safe from harm, whether from accidents, sickness, or malice requires different types of solutions. Are you against seat belts in cars? If you die, you die, right?

No, we shouldn't differentiate between murder and all the other myriad ways we can die. That's why we have rules and laws about the sanctity and protection of life. But there are A LOT of other ways we can die, much of which people have direct control over. We need to put things into perspective and prioritize our fears, because we're politicizing something that has less of a chance of killing us than say, some disease. You, as a human being living in the U.S., are more likely to die from cardiac arrest than from someone shooting you with a gun. Maybe if you're young, it's more of a genuine fear, but when you get older, meh. Yet, people seem to freak out every time some nutcase shoots random people. Then they blithely sit at home in their chairs, pigging out on fattening foods, vegging around like fat toads, all the while becoming obese and THEN not worrying about if they're going to die from the ticking time bomb of a heart attack, which is FAR more likely to happen to them than being shot by a random stranger.

Hell, I'm over 60 and am far more likely to die in the near future from a heart attack while shoveling snow than having some idiot shoot me and kill me in a shopping mall while I walk around. I'm not even obese. So why are we Americans so afraid of being shot by someone we don't know, but we rarely worry about dying from a heart attack or even cancer? Hell, right now, I'd even rather be shot and killed outright by some stranger than die from a long, protracted and agonizing death by cancer right now. It would be quicker.

https://www.livescience.com/3780-odds-dying.html

You know, if we swapped the legality of drugs vs guns, just imagine how much violent crime would drop, it would be enormous.

You're forgetting meth. People steal and kill for the stuff all the time because it makes them desperate and crazy.