Gun Controller In Chief
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 10 months ago
President Trump’s Tuesday announcement of a bump stock ban is upsetting members of a core constituency: gun owners wooed by his effusive campaign-trail vows to defend the Second Amendment, with two groups promising to see Trump in court.
“If there’s anything that irritates you more than a president like Obama who’s trying to stab you in the heart, it’s one who is trying to stab you in the back,” said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel of Gun Owners of America, a group that claims more than 1.5 million members.
Bump stocks allow semi-automatic rifles to fire more rapidly, contributing to the 59-person massacre at a 2017 Las Vegas concert, and the ban was widely anticipated. Owners have 90 days to destroy or give the government their devices.
The ban was regarded as a less-controversial gun control step after Trump shocked gun groups in February by endorsing a higher age limit for AR-15 rifles, background checks for private gun sales, and reforms to let police “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
Hammond, who branded Trump the “gun grabber in chief” when he voiced support for various forms of gun control after the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., now calls him the “gun grabber in chief, with a vengeance,” arguing the bump stock ban is illegal and opens the door to more weapon seizures.
“I don’t think Trump understands that just because he goes to 10 rallies and says ‘I love the Second Amendment’ that if he does things that are dramatically anti-Second Amendment, our people are going to be mad. Our people are not stupid,” Hammond said.
On Friday, Gun Owners of America intends to sue the Trump administration over the bump stock ban, citing the Obama administration’s conclusion that the plastic devices don’t meet the legal definition for machine gun, meaning they cannot be banned.
Hammond estimates that up to 1 million people own a bump stock and objects to the approximately $300 item being taken without compensation. He argues the Trump administration’s legal justification could later allow for a backdoor AR-15 ban.
Another group, the Firearms Policy Coalition, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging the ban.
“The bottom line is President Trump has been more anti-gun in his tenure, in terms of legislation and regulations, than the Obama administration,” said Brandon Combs, president of the Firearms Policy Coalition.
“I think his base is probably going to see in the next election cycle the choice between someone who has not been great for us and someone who would probably be worse. Then the question is, what would that mean for turnout?” Combs said.
The bump stock was banned the same day as Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety adopted a report calling for states to pass laws allowing the temporary gun seizures using “extreme risk protection orders.”
Having done that which Obama wouldn’t even do. And that about sums it up. Trump’s Northern progressive proclivities combined with his awful counsel from senior staffers has caused a situation in which he might not get the turnout necessary for another win.
Trump gave us time without another Clinton presidency. That’s all. Use it well.
On December 27, 2018 at 10:03 am, Fred said:
You got to give Obama credit where credit is due. While I’ve said plenty of bad things about him that he deserves, he said that he would leave us clinging to our guns and our bibles and that’s exactly what he did, a man of his word. And, in fact, although I don’t recognize that office as having authority over the matter either way, thank you Obama, for CCW in National Parks
Trump, on the other hand, is a liar. Pitting family, co-worker, neighbor, and parishioner against one another, nobody will have done more damage to American Freedom than Trump and his Red Flag laws. It’s almost as if there is a long program and these laws come right on schedule. It’s as if the plans of the Frankfurt School that was full of commies, Nazis, and the people who mustn’t be named, is working perfectly, no?
On December 28, 2018 at 9:18 am, Fred said:
Tennessee Firearms Association is in on the Bump Stock lawsuit.
https://www.grnewsletters.com/archive/tfa/TFA-to-assist-financially-as-Gun-Owners-of-America-sues-ATF-over-bumpstocks-572333301.html?e=&u=izZc&s=9HerV4
On December 29, 2018 at 1:36 am, Saint Mike said:
I really wanted a wall on the Southern Border but I got a Bumpstock ban. DJT will be a one term President. One term only.
On December 29, 2018 at 11:29 pm, chewy said:
Or, Trump passed this intentionally about an insignificant item so that it WOULD be contested in court, eventually run up to the Supreme Court, and there get thrown out as unconstitutional…. along with every other gun law/restriction on the books. Sweeping the decks clean so to speak.
On December 30, 2018 at 6:30 pm, H said:
chewy: More and more of us have stopped believing the 4D underwater chess trope. Any of us who are familiar with how the Federal courts loathe guns, especially “machine guns”, know how this will play out, unless Notorious RGB is forced to step down by the time it hits the Supreme Court, and is replaced by a RKBA favoring judge.
Assuming the Capitol and surrounding buildings like the Supreme Court’s are still standing, the Kavanaugh circus was nothing compared to what they’ll do when they believe they’re losing one of their own, and losing their liberal majority for the first time since FDR.
And past history suggests one or more of the “conservatives” will “grow in office” like Roberts did. All we know with the seating of Kavanaugh is that there’s still an anti-RKBA majority, either he or Roberts plus the liberal 4, the court has already denied cert to an appeal.