Firearm Bans Under Obama

True. I don't care one way or another about a bump stock ban, but I don't like how Trump went about doing it. It really, really worries me about the precedent it sets. I do think it's ironic though that the Republicans were screaming bloody murder about Obama's overreach when he stopped deporting Dreamers (even though they had a poiint), but with Trump's fake National Emergency and banning bump stocks by fiat*, they're like, "Meh" .

*I mean think about it. Unless the courts stop it, people are going to go to bed on March 25 as law abiding citizens, and then wake up on the 26th as felons because the President says so.

shootER

Hence one of the reasons why "law abiding citizen" does not translate into "good person." I don't like a system that can curb rights at the stroke of a pen, with no input from anyone else.

That's not how it works. Very few bills come out of Congress with only the originally intended provisions in them.

Republicans get it both ways: they remove the issue without the Democrats getting credit for it, and none of them had to actually vote for it.

Ban all gun stocks IMO. Nothing in the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to accurate firearms.

Kyle Reese agrees!

Another list I didn't make.

At the expense of the next Democratic president being able to ban the next gun accessory they don't like and make thousands or millions of felons overnight. Fuck the GOP for trading that for not having to vote on a bill there was next to no opposition on.

The next guy will do what the next guy will do. For something very marginal--like bump stocks--this may pass muster in the courts, but anything more restrictive would certainly not.

And this move may yet be stopped by the courts.

That's quite fatalistic of you, and totally ignores the fact that precedent is incredibly important in determining what goes.

Based on what?

And if it does, the Democrats will try to legislate it, and you had better believe they won't stop with bump stocks.

Precedent can only be precedent if it's allowed to stand. And if it's allowed to stand, it's legitimized.

Gosh, you're right! I certainly don't want the Democrats to start pushing gun control.

Oh, wait...

My experience is that the Democrats will push for as much gun control as they could possibly get regardless.

Hell, they're working on passing several measures in the House now. They went right to work on that as soon as they got into power.

Here in California, most of the Democratic gun control wishlist--short of complete abolition of private ownership--has been implemented, and none of it in reaction to oversteps by any Republican.

So, I think you're a little naive about their intentions.

Yeah, I've come around to thinking the whole "slippery slope" type arguments are intellectually lazy myself. On the other hand, remember how the 94 AWB was so laughable precisely because of all the "marginal" stuff it banned? Stuff like collapsible stocks, pistol grips, bayonet lugs, flash hiders, barrel shrouds, etc.

That's how gun control works: by chipping away at the margins.

But that may also be its undoing. A flash hider, for instance, is useful in a gun for defensive purposes (and therefore protected by the 2nd IMHO) but regulators would be hard-pressed to show *any* compelljng social costs associated with them.

Butbut a sniper could use one and the police wouldn't be able to see him! :O