Ammoland:

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and Firearms Policy Foundation (FPF) have announced that their extensive, 923-page opposition comment was filed with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regarding the agency’s proposed rulemaking to ban “bump-stock” devices. The FPC Comment and its 35 exhibits can be viewed online in their entirety at https://www.firearmspolicy.org/fpc-fpf-opposition-atf-bump-stock-ban.

The FPC Comment in opposition was filed on the groups’ behalf by attorneys Joshua Prince and Adam Kraut of Firearms Industry Consulting Group (FICG) after President Trump directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to use executive actions to unlawfully and unconstitutionally expand the scope of statutes to force the dispossession and destruction of legally-acquired property–without just compensation–and subject possibly more than 500,000 Americans to severe federal criminal penalties.

Here is a summary of the arguments.

• ATF’s Proposed Rulemaking (docket no. 2017R-22) is procedurally flawed and violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)
• ATF’s proposed rule violates the Constitution in numerous ways, including:
  • I – Separation of Powers
  • I – Ex Post Facto Clause
  • Fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms protected under the Second Amendment
  • Rights to due process, fair notice, and just compensation for the taking of property protected under the Fifth Amendment
• ATF’s proposed rule exceeds its statutory authority
• ATF’s proposed rule is arbitrary and capricious
• ATF’s proposed rule is unconstitutionally vague
• ATF failed to consider viable and precedential alternatives
• ATF’s proposed rule is not supported by policy considerations
• ATF’s proposed rule “should be withdrawn and summarily discarded, or, in the alternative, ATF should elect Alternative 1 and abandon the proposed rulemaking in its entirety.”

I really appreciate the hard work these men put into attempting to stop really bad regulation that has potential far-reaching consequences in the future.

I have not had a chance to read all or even much of what’s there.  Suffice it to say that the ATF is legally required to read and respond, even if their responses are stolid and doltish.

I’d also like to reiterate that I’ve made my own comments, and James Wesley Rawles has made a large number of very astute comments.  I’ve also followed up my initial comments with the following queries.

1. Note for the record any and all registered professional engineers employed and/or contracted and remunerated by the ATF or DOJ, whose job it was to provide input, calculations, analysis or opinions on the technical issues pertaining to this rulemaking.  Provide those analyses for our review, and list the PEs by name, license number and state.  State laws for all fifty states require that such analyses be traceable and sealed or stamped by the PE.  If no PEs have reviewed the technical issues pertaining to this rulemaking, say so with specificity and clarity.
2. Note for the record any and all licensed professional gunsmiths employed and/or contracted and remunerated by the ATF or DOJ, whose job it was to provide input, analysis or opinions on the technical issues pertaining to this rulemaking.  Provide those analyses for our review, and list the gunsmiths by name, license number and state.  If no gunsmiths have reviewed the technical issues pertaining to this rulemaking, say so with specificity and clarity.

With all due respect to the lawyers who have worked hard on this, and the mechanics and fabricators who are far better than I am, the machinists who can do things I can’t, and the backyard engineers out there who can rig things I’ve never thought of, I request – no, I demand – that these last two questions be answered officially and in the public record.

A lawyer isn’t an engineer.  A mechanic isn’t an engineer.  A machinist isn’t an engineer – I mean by that a registered professional engineer who is licensed in one or more states.  An engineering license connotes legal liability and financial and fiduciary responsibility, to the point of lose of business and personal possessions and even bankruptcy.  Not even a professor of engineering holding multiple PhDs impresses me in the least.  A PhD isn’t a PE (professional engineering) license.

I demand to know what registered professional engineers were involved in the determination(s) made by the ATF regarding this rule change, their names, states registered, and license numbers.  I retain the right to litigate the lack of technical review and accountability and seek damages to gun owners by all available means, as well as seek censure of the PEs involved in this process.