Trump’s Bump Stock Ban Is Under Fire From His Own Judicial Appointees
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 5 months ago
The lawyers at the Department of Justice (DOJ) came up with a new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulation “to clarify that [bump stocks] are ‘machineguns’ as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968” because “such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger.” The federal ban on machine guns, in other words, would be interpreted by the Trump administration to ban bump stocks too.
That unilateral executive action has now come under fire from two federal judges appointed by Trump himself.
On March 2, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a statement respecting the denial of certiorari in Guedes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The executive branch “used to tell everyone that bump stocks don’t qualify as ‘machineguns.’ Now it says the opposite.” Yet “the law hasn’t changed, only an agency’s interpretation of it,” Gorsuch complained. “How, in all of this, can ordinary citizens be expected to keep up….And why should courts, charged with the independent and neutral interpretation of the laws Congress has enacted, defer to such bureaucratic pirouetting?”
Gorsuch wasn’t alone. On March 30, Judge Brantley Starr, a Trump appointee who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, issued a blistering opinion in Lane v. United States that basically accused the DOJ of ignoring foundational constitutional principles in its defense of Trump’s bump stock ban.
The Justice Department justified the ban as a lawful exercise of the “federal police power,” Starr observed. But “the federal government forgot the Tenth Amendment and the structure of the Constitution itself,” which grants no such power to the feds. “It is concerning that the federal government believes it swallowed the states whole. Assuming the federal government didn’t abolish the states to take their police power,” Starr wrote, he had no choice but to deny the government’s motion to dismiss the case. He then tartly added: “The Court will allow the government to try again and explain which enumerated power justifies the federal regulation.”
Complaining isn’t the same thing as overturning and nullifying because it was, is, and always will be, unconstitutional.
Judges and justices using their opinions to bitch about things, even if that’s all the power they have if they’re aren’t in the majority, is extremely weak tea.
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On June 15, 2020 at 7:30 am, penses said:
“It is concerning that the federal government believes it swallowed the states whole. Assuming the federal government didn’t abolish the states to take their police power….The Court will allow the government to try again and explain which enumerated power justifies the federal regulation.”
That is exactly what Lincoln did. These United States were swallowd up and became the State. Under his reign of terror the states were abolished and became provinces of the Empire he created.
Lincoln turned the Constitution into a scrap of paper which has allowed the Feds over the last 150ys to take the police power from the states and invest it in the federal government leaving the states with nothing but a geographical designation. Trump, being a good NY Democrat, doesn’t give a d–n about the Constitution anyway, and using the example of Lincoln, his hero, went around the Constitution via dictatorial fiat (suppressor and Red Flag laws). Every president since “Honest Abe” has done the same to one degree or another.
The reason the DOJ “justified the ban as a lawful exercise of the “federal police power,” is because the Bill of Rights has been nullified by penumbras too numerous to mention (abortion being the most egregious–100 million murders–and this country will pay dearly for it). The people at the DOJ know this. If asked off the record they would probably tell you they don’t give a damn about the Constitution or States Rights (just ask General Flynn). Each one of the alphabet soup of federal agencies is a violation of the 9th and 10th amendments. They know this and they don’t care.
If the Constitution meant anything Obama world be in jail and General Flynn a hero.
On June 15, 2020 at 7:47 am, Longbow said:
So, a citizen cannot get redress of his legitimate grievances in the Federal Courts. The Federal Government has assumed for itself a “General Police Power”, never granted to it under the Constitution. The Federal Government goes into Court with the assumption that the Bill of Rights simply doesn’t exist and must be reminded that it does in EVERY case.
Hmmm… what should we call this?
On June 15, 2020 at 1:32 pm, MTHead said:
Treat us like outlaws long enough…. And.
On June 15, 2020 at 8:03 pm, Ned2 said:
Gun Owners Lives Matter. I think I’m onto something. Civil Rights and all.