Thursday, February 22, 2018

Trump move to ban bump stocks, expand background checks is terrible because NRA supports it

Nikolas Cruz did not use a bump stock at Parkland, but Stephen Paddock did in Vegas, and even most Second Amendment stalwarts seemed to agree at the time that you don't need a bump stock - which is basically an add-on making a non-automatic rifle function like an automatic - in order to exercise your right to keep and bear arms.

So when President Trump announced on Tuesday that he wants the Justice Department to issue regualtions effectively banning them, that would seem if nothing else to be a minimal move everyone could get behind.

President Trump - under pressure from angry, grieving students from a Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 people last week - ordered the Justice Department on Tuesday to issue regulations banning so-called bump stocks, which convert semiautomatic guns into automatic weapons like those used last year in the massacre of concertgoers in Las Vegas.

A day earlier, Mr. Trump signaled that he was open to supporting legislation that would modestly improve the national gun background check system, and on Tuesday night, he posted on Twitter that Democrats and Republicans "Must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!".

The National Rifle Association supports the background check legislation and also backs bump stock regulation, although not an outright ban.

I'm not convinced banning bump stocks will make any different at all if the goal is to prevent mass shootings, for the same reason I've argued all along that legal access to firearms is not the cause of the problem.

As for the bump stock ban, what you're really talking about is banning one method of modifying an already powerful rifle.

http://canadafreepress.com/article/left-trump-move-to-ban-bump-stocks-expand-background-checks-is-terrible-bec 

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