We need more guns!

Technically if you use it as designed, and assuming you’re using the word “pull” to indicate moving your finger backwards, you don’t pull the trigger at all (in fact you can’t really “pull” the trigger in that sense when using a bump stock). You’re resting your finger on a piece of plastic and repeatedly pushing the trigger into it.

That’s why, as I think I have noted before, DOJ’s best argument that it’s a machinegun probably would have been to argue that the trigger (as in the pivoting curved metal piece) ceases to be the “trigger” at all when using a bumpstock and instead becomes the functional equivalent of some sort of sear. Presumably the reason they haven’t made that argument (and I think they admitted they aren’t arguing this), is that it would probably force them to argue that either the foregrip of the gun or the shooter’s support arm becomes the new trigger, and they’re never going to successfully explain to a layman how either a fixed piece of plastic on the front of the gun that is bolted into place and can’t move, or a body part of the user, could possibly be a trigger.

 

That's helpful. It doesn't change my perspective, but I wasn't comprehending how you initiated the firing. After watching a video showing it, I now get it.

 

IMO if a bump stock can cause a gun to fire fire faster than a traditional semi-auto and the inputs are essential from the gun at that point then I don’t see why it can’t be regulated like a machine gun. I’ve never fired a gun with a bump stock so I don’t know if it can fire faster but from what I’ve read that’s true.

Honestly though, why are people fighting to keep bump stocks? Is this another one of the inane slippery slope arguments?

 

Most gun folks you see fighting this ban don’t particularly care whether bump stocks are ultimately legal or not.

The big driving factor behind this fight is the perception that ATF is an out of control agency that just arbitrarily makes things up, then regularly flip-flops on their own made up rules, without much regard for what the law they’re supposedly enforcing actually says. And this is the most high-profile and public example of it with them having repeatedly put out technical advisory letters saying they were legal for decades (and responded to inquiries from multiple presidential administrations and senators saying they can’t do anything about them because they don’t have regulatory authority to do so) but then put out a rule that says “actually we were wrong and they’ve been illegal all along.”

 

HS kids pulled into wrong driveway and immediately started leaving. But this gun nut thought it was his big chance to shoot someone. With his shotgun he killed 16 yr old girl in passenger seat. He was found guilty of murder and is looking at 25 yrs.

“A man was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday for fatally shooting a young woman when the SUV she was riding in mistakenly drove into his rural driveway”


New York man convicted of murdering woman who wound up in his backcountry driveway after wrong turn

 

An automatic fires at the cyclic rate of the action of the weapon. In a typical M4 or M16 this involves the trigger releasing the hammer, the hammer hitting the firing pin and igniting the primer, the primer igniting the powder and expelling the bullet down the barrel, expanding gas from that ignition traveling through the gas port some length down the barrel and into the gas tube back into the action, unlocking the bolt and pushing the carrier to the rear which strips and ejects the spent cartridge. The carrier travels backward into the buffer tube and pushes the hammer down along the way, catching it on the disconnector in the trigger group. The spring in the buffer tube then sends the carrier forward again and the rear portion trips the auto sear, releasing the hammer from the disconnector and sending the hammer forward again to start the process all over.

a semi auto can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger up to the cyclic rate of the action of the gun. The same things happen in an AR-15 up to the part about tripping the auto sear, which means the hammer stays hung up by the disconnector until the carrier travels forward and the trigger is released, catching the hammer on the sear surface of the trigger shoe until the trigger is pulled again.

A bump stock is based upon the technique of bump firing. Essentially this is a technique that uses the recoil of the gun to reset the finger faster and forward pressure from a large muscle group to bump the finger against the trigger. It can be accomplished through a variety of means, such as a rubber band or zip tie, a pencil through the trigger guard, etc. bump stocks are simply a fitted plastic piece that that slides over the buffer tube after the stock and pistol grip are removed that holds your trigger finger in a fixed position and limits how it can move. it changes none of the internal function or how bump firing occurs but enables you to pull the trigger significantly faster than traditional semi auto fire by using the inertia of the gun to reset your finger and using a larger muscle group (your arm) to actuate (or “bump”) the trigger by applying varying forward pressure to the foregrip of the firearm in time with the cyclic action. It makes it easier to pull the trigger faster repeatedly, but is not as simple as an auto sear or automatically at the cyclic rate of the action. It isn’t particularly accurate because while the bump stock stays in a fixed position, the rest of the gun (barrel, action, any attached sight) is sliding back and forth.

I say all this because what is outlawed is not fast rates of fire, but guns that fire more than one shot per function of the trigger, automatically (that is, in a self regulating fashion). Triggers that fire upon both pull and release (known as binary triggers) are legal and are easier to replicate higher rates of fire. Manual trigger cranks, where you spin a handle to actuate the trigger repeatedly at a high rate, are legal. Bump firing without a bump stock (which can be done with just about any semi auto firearm) is legal. Heck, Gatling guns are legal and not even considered a machine gun because they fire by crank and not by trigger. The law regulates function of the trigger, not rate of fire or action of the shooter. For all the reasons Ben pointed out, attempting to apply the national firearms act to any of those things would require backflips of logic that would make no rational sense. The act was constructed that way on purpose.

The same is true of bump stocks and it would open the door to items such as lighter triggers, binary triggers, fast shooting (google Jerry Miculek if you want to see what a good shooter with a semi auto is capable of), or any other number of things being banned at the whim of unelected and partisan bureaucrats that change with each administration, and citizens that rely on their guidance being forced to surrender or destroy property they purchased in good faith or be made into felons overnight.

as I said before, bump stocks are little more than a novelty without much practical purpose, and I don’t really care if they get outlawed. The proper path is through the passage of a narrowly tailored law, however, and not administrative fiat over and above the plain text of the law.

 

Time for a moment of silence to celebrate the intelligence of the British. This is the 28th anniversary of the Dunblane massacre in Scotland. A gunman, upset with the loss of his occupation as a boy scout leader when he was alleged to have slept "too closely" to scouts in his van, decided to kill some people at a local school, and brought several weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Over 30 people were shot, and 16 were killed before the gunman shot himself. It was the deadliest school shooting in British history.

Dunblane massacre - Wikipedia

The Brits thought about it, and decided to enact something called "gun control". Nowadays, there are fewer than 16 gun homicides a year in Britain. For some reason, the British had enough intelligence to realize that firearm homicide was a potentially serious problem, and they found a way to enact gun control that did not cause the population to go insane. Meanwhile, the U.S. has had hundreds of school shootings and thousands of murders, and each time, one political party claims that there is no problem. In 2021 alone, the U.S. had 48,830 people die from gun-related injuries. (Hmmm, which number is larger, 16, or 48,830?) If anything, the idiots say, U.S. citizens need more guns. How did the British get so much smarter than the Americans? Bueller? Bueller?

 

More great moments in gun owner conception of self-defense, legal, apparently in NC

 

Listening to episode one of the newest season of this podcast, titled "In Guns We Trust" (the season), which primarily addresses Columbine. I thought I was fairly well read, but two things I did not know or did not recall.

First, I knew the two (will not name) had explosives, but I either did not know or appreciate that the gun deaths were supposed to be secondary to numerous explosives that were supposed to create a far greater death count that surpassed Oklahoma City.

That leads to the second point. The shooting occurred April 20, but was supposed to occur April 19, the anniversary of Oklahoma City and numerous other events that the violent far right considers totemic.

IOW, it is remembered as a mass shooting, which it was, but was intended to be viewed (their exact "beliefs" are no detailed in this episode at least) as a far greater mass death bombing, viewed in continuity with the Oklahoma City bombing and far right violence.

‎Long Shadow on Apple Podcasts

 

A teacher has a $40 million lawsuit going against her assistant principal and the school district, after a 6-year-old shot her. Teachers suspected that the boy had a firearm in his backpack, but were forbidden by the assistant principal to search the backpack, because the boy's mother was about to pick him up at school. The teacher had a collapsed lung after being shot in the chest.

Former assistant principal charged with child neglect in case of 6-year-old boy who shot teacher

 

At the risk of jinxing this whole thing, it feels like 2024 has been extraordinarily light for mass/school shootings. Hope this trend continues, but more likely a matter of when.

 

Side bar. I am a gun guy but never had a bunch, just needed the right tool for the job. When my FIL passed, we inherited a couple and I had a collectable military weapon I wanted to sale.
It was difficult to sale them because I really didn't want to deal with strangers for two reasons. One, I didn't have a decent way to know their end use and two, the money involved for the collectable.
Took over a year to unload. They all went to friends or my friend's dad but it was laborious.
Random post. I know.

 

I have sold some guns over the years. I would not sell a gun to a stranger for the reasons you listed. I use a local gun shop and sell on consignment. The buyer has to pass the background check that way. Of course I give up a percentage of the sale price to the gun shop but to me it is worth it.

 

I appreciate your efforts to keep those guns (you're selling) out of the hands of the wrong people, and to thus keep us all a bit safer. Thank you.

My question, though, is do you vote for people who enshrine in legislation the opposite, by making it easier for people to sell guns to the wrong people? That is to say, do you vote Republican? If so, do you at least oppose their efforts to proliferate easy access to firearms?


For just one example;

In 2023, North Carolina repealed its law requiring a permit to purchase a handgun and is no longer a partial point of contact state for NICS.

 

I’ve passed my guns down to my son. Only sold to friends but that was a long time ago.

 

The guys running gun shops

 

I think you might be right. Hard to tell cuz I don’t see a calendar YTD version but if you assume they are evenly spread out we are on day 101 of 365 so that would mean 96 shootings should have occurred to be flat with last year and we are on 88.
K-12 School Shooting Database

 

“Jonathan Stone, was announced as Trump’s Sullivan County chair….threatened to kill his colleagues in shooting spree, murder his chief and rape the chief's wife because the department suspended him 5 days for his relationship with a high school girl.

Stone’s future with the campaign has not been determined. “We haven’t made any decisions at this point,”

 

Yes. Anniversaries of OKC bombing and Columbine are later this month though

 

Another gun owner’s big chance to kill something