LiveLife
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Time will tell what LaPierre/NRA will do on binary trigger. I certainly hope that he/they will take a defensive support position with binary trigger or they will offend even more members.
Thankfully fight for reversing bump stock ban is being done by Gun Owners of America (GOA) and in their argument presented on 3/8/19, made very good points where bump stocks were previously determined by ATF to be non-regulated item and no history of crime was documented with use of bump stocks - https://www.ammoland.com/2019/03/gun-owners-of-america-day-court-bump-stocks/
What NRA should do is to reassess their previous position that bump stock essentially turns a semi-auto firearm into a "machine gun" and take a supportive position with GOA or even join the lawsuit as basis used by the government to ban bump stock is weak. And as expressed by GOA argument, there are other 2A issues with the bump stock ban that NRA should have considered before taking a supportive position for the ban:
Silver lining to the NRA/bump stock dark cloud could be that LaPierre/NRA reforms/transforms into more effective pro-gun/2A organization and GOA lawsuit win could pave the way for binary trigger.
(OP, I apologize if this post detracts from the thread focus but I want to post this to show why NRA's action against bump stocks angered so many members and may have added to call for LaPierre's resignation)
"Judge Appears Wary of ATF Overreach
During oral arguments ... much of the discussion with the judge centered around a doctrine known as “Chevron deference.”
If you’re not familiar with this guideline, you might wonder what this has to do with bump stocks. But, in fact, it has quite a bit to do with the subject at hand. “Chevron deference” is a doctrine that essentially gives a federal agency tremendous latitude in interpreting and applying a federal statute.
Olson [GOA attorney] consistently made the point that the ATF did NOT deserve deference … that the agency was misapplying the federal statute regarding bump stocks … and, more importantly, that the ATF was effectively changing the statutory definition of what a machine gun is.
This argument seemed to resonate with the judge, who appeared unwilling to grant deference to the ATF.
Why a Bump Stock is NOT a Machine Gun
The judge asked GOA’s counsel if a bump stock allows an uninterrupted automatic cycle of fire — as a machine gun would. Olson said NO. He explained that a bump stock allows for repeated SEMI-automatic fire in a rapid manner, where each function of the trigger produces one bullet out the end of the barrel — albeit occurring in rapid, repeated succession.
The government took the contrary view, claiming that a bump stock starts in motion a continuous chain of successive fire.
More to the point, Olson noted that while an untrained shooter could fire an automatic weapon with one hand — by simply pulling the trigger back — no person could repeatedly bump fire a semi-automatic weapon with just one hand.
Even the ATF has had to concede in its written regulation that bump firing a weapon requires the shooter to use both hands.
And this gets to the core distinction between a bump stock and an automatic weapon. The U.S. code defines a machine gun as a firearm that can shoot “automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”
One can fire a machine gun with only one hand because the internal mechanism in the weapon will produce automatic fire with a “single function” of the trigger. But to bump fire a semi-auto, the shooter must use two hands, and in most cases, spend time learning how to actually perfect his individual technique for each different bump stock firearm. Anyone who has ever bump fired a semi-auto knows there is a learning curve in determining the appropriate amount of force with which to push forward on the firearm using the non-trigger hand.
So in other words, it’s the shooter who creates the bump fire effect. Because “bump firing,” first and foremost, is a technique, and not a product that is sold over-the-counter.
But that’s not the case with a machine gun. A person who has never touched a gun could easily fire an automatic weapon because it’s the internal mechanism that actually allows repeated rounds to be fired “automatically.”
The back-and-forth between Olson and the judge on this point was crucial and could play a critical role in the judge’s decision-making process.
No Evidence that Bump Stocks are a Threat to Safety
One of the government’s lawyers brought up the Las Vegas shooting from 2017 as a reason to ban bump stocks. He claimed that the inherent dangerousness of bump stocks necessitated a ban for the sake of “public safety.”
Of course, if this logic were to prevail, the government could justify banning all weapons — handguns, rifles, shotguns, etc. — given that all these weapons are inherently “dangerous.”
GOA’s attorney countered by telling the judge there is no actual proof of one recorded instance where bump stocks have been used in a crime. Olson even cited the lack of FBI and ATF statements, studies or reports to demonstrate that there is no conclusive evidence that a bump stock was actually used by the Las Vegas shooter. This was something of a “mic drop” moment, because when given the chance to respond, the government’s lawyer could not — in fact, he refused to — counter Olson’s statement on this point.
Thus, the oral arguments in the Western district federal court on March 6 established unrebutted testimony that, to date, there is no proof of any documented case where a bump stock was used in a crime.
Even if it is one day determined conclusively that the Las Vegas shooting was the first case where a bump stock was used in a crime — it would still remain the ONLY case.
And this ONE case would hardly then represent an imminent “danger to public safety.” Especially when one considers that “bump firing” a weapon can be achieved without bump stocks, and that these items have been used by hundreds of thousands of gun owners in a perfectly safe manner."
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