CypherPunk
Opinions Are My Own
- Apr 6, 2012
- 3,907
If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it...
So...in all of this, did they make the porno or not?
In general, I think the point is that bump stocks emulate machine gun fire, which are expressly made difficult to purchase by Federal law.
Bump stocks have now been used to commit a pretty serious crime, just as tommy guns were in the 20s. As such, there is a legitimate need to regulate that specific type of device, and devices that perform the same function.
When someone is playing around with a bump stock, they are generally doing it because they feel like the got away with something, like forbidden fruit. “I go me a machine gun!” Machine guns are regulated because they can do an inordinate amount of damage.
Our eventual win for gun rights does have to be metered with some level of public safety. I think the NRA did exactly the right thing;it’s not like they don’t rightly oppose pretty much everything else.
And yet, the exact same thing is true of unaltered semi-automatic rifles. Did you really forget the Norway attack that took even more lives than the Las Vegas one?
Do you think that there is a "legitimate need" to "regulate" semi-automatic rifles? Your logic demands that you do. So either you must abandon your justification for "regulating" bump-fire stocks, or you must support the same kinds of "regulations" against semi-automatic rifles.
No, machine guns are "regulated" because the government thought "regulating" them would make it easier to go up against organized crime organizations back in the 1930s. As if criminal organizations give a crap about laws. No, the NFA is exactly the same kind of response to the evil things that people have done that the national AWB was, and is no more legitimate. It is only because machine guns are "scary" and "powerful" that even some so-called "pro-gun" people are supportive of banning them.
Machine guns are not like explosives -- they are still directed-fire weapons.
Claims of "public safety" have to be proven for them to have any merit in the first place. Where's the data that shows that public safety is substantially higher with the NFA in place than without it? My bet is that you have none. And that means your position has no merit at all.
I agree with you; however, I see the merit to the argument that "IF we are to treat machine guns differently, then there's no real reason to not include bump stocks in that category." I personally don't think machine guns should be regulated beyond that of any other firearm.