Bump stock case more than the 2A

Michael Cargill owns Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, a gun shop. After a mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, the ATF banned bump stocks on rifles — with the blessing of President Trump and the National Rifle Association because jeepers no one wants to stand up for gun rights or any rights when there’s an emergency.

How did Rahm Emanuel put it? Oh yes, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

And if there isn’t a crisis, don’t worry. The government will create one.

The ATF argued that bump stocks turned rifles into machine guns. It demanded Americans surrender their bump stocks.

The Texas Tribune reported, “The case was filed by Michael Cargill, the owner of Central Texas Gun Works and an outspoken proponent of gun rights in Texas, after he surrendered two bump stocks to the ATF. He argued that ATF incorrectly identified bump stocks as machine guns, and overstepped its power in banning them. He brought the case with the support of the advocacy group the New Civil Liberties Alliance.”

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where two-thirds of the justices told the ATF to pound sand (or if you prefer, salt) because a rifle with a bump stock is not a machine gun.

Moe Kagan, writing in dissent for the Three Stoogettes, argued that, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’ Because I, like Congress, call that a machine gun, I respectfully dissent.”

A bump stock doesn’t do that. You can fire more rapidly with one but you still have to hit the trigger repeatedly. She should have saved the walks like a duck argument for her dissent in the inevitable ruling that tranny women aren’t real women. Maybe she can recycle the argument by saying if it walks like an Egyptian . . .

The Texas Tribune also reported:

"We hold that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machinegun’ because it cannot fire more than one shot ‘by a single function of the trigger,’” wrote Clarence Thomas in the majority opinion. “And, even if it could, it would not do so ‘automatically.’”

Cargill said that he had to take on this case as the sole plaintiff because “no one wanted to help,” including the National Rifle Association. Cargill noted that at the time of the ban Donald Trump was president, and those he hoped would support him “didn't want to go against Trump.”

“I think of the Second Amendment as a right for the people. I don't care who's the president, who's in office and who's in charge,” Cargill said. “This was wrong. I was going to fight it. I’m glad I did it. I did it all by myself.”

Cargill is absolutely right about gun rights and the Second Amendment except this case was not about the Second Amendment. In his concurring opinion, Justice Alito said Congress can ban bump stocks tomorrow if it wanted:

I join the opinion of the Court because there is simply no other way to read the statutory language. There can be little doubt that the Congress that enacted 26 U. S. C. §5845(b) would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock. But the statutory text is clear, and we must follow it.

The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machine gun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning.

There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machine guns. Congress can amend the law — and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.

Certainly the Second Amendment is important. Only an idiot would say otherwise, which explains why Democrats keep denying the importance of the amendment.

But this case was about reining in the bureaucracy. Communists infiltrated the government, rose to positions of power and cannot be fired. They then used their power to do such things as fund Red China’s development of biological warfare — covid 19 for instance — and banned gas stoves in the name of stopping asthma.

None of their excuses make sense because the excuses do not have to make sense because none of these bureaucrats are held accountable to anyone. Cargill moves us closer to ending this.

Another case percolating up is Mock v. Garland, which the Firearms Policy Coalition filed along with William Mock, Christopher Lewis, and Maxim Defense Industries in Texas. A district court judge struck down ATF’s ban on pistol braces.

Paul Bedard reported:

In a 12-page decision, the Texas-based U.S. District Court vacated the rule that could have led to the destruction of millions of firearms, among the most popular in America, and the jailing of owners who had refused to comply with the administration.

The court also blasted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for thinking that it could change a long-established exemption overnight to make ownership of the firearms illegal.

In reacting to the case, Mock v. Garland, the Firearms Policy Coalition, which pushed the case, tweeted out what it called the “layman’s” summary.

“ATF broke the law by being overreaching sneaky pricks. Therefore, the right thing for the Court to do was throw the Rule in the trash. The Court threw the Pistol Brace Rule in the trash,” it said.

The same court had earlier approved the ATF rule, but an appeals court overruled it. In today’s decision, the District Court judge agreed that the ATF rule was illegal and likely to be rejected by other courts.

The case is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, those involved said.

The media lies about guns.

Nicholas Fondacaro tweeted with a video, “NBC's Erin McLaughlin blames the Supreme Court's decision on bump stocks to 3 mass shootings over the weekend, despite the fact none of the weapons were equipped with them.”

If we want to shut down misinformation and disinformation, dismantle the NBC network.

But the real reason Biden and the bureaucrats get away with ignoring the Constitution is Congress. The bureaucracy actually does the job that Congress is too lazy to do.

While the senators and representatives are busy fetching tax loopholes and other business advantages for their donors, the bureaucrats are deciding the fate of bump stocks and vaccine mandates.

You know, 250 years ago, Americans rebelled against such edicts. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s list of complaints about King George III, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

This court, dominated by Trump’s Trio, is taking on the most powerful, present and clear threat to your liberty: the federal bureaucracy. This was just the latest swipe.

Two years ago in West Virginia v. EPA, Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day.’ New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 187 (1992). But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme in Section 111(d). A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”

He is right. If global cooling/global warming/climate change is so important and such a threat, then Congress should deal with it directly and not Walter Peck at the EPA.

Don’t get me wrong. The end of the bump stock ban is a big win for the Second Amendment, but it is an even greater victory in the battle against our tormentors in the federal bureaucracy. Leave us the hell alone.

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Biden’s surgeon general wants to put warning labels on using social media.

What does he not want us to see?

Things like this.

Keep the faith, baby.