This week, the Department of Justice announced that it would soon be releasing a final rule classifying “bump-stock-type-devices” as “machineguns” under the National Firearms Act.
These devices came to national attention in October 2017 after the horrific attack in Las Vegas. As multiple media accounts correctly pointed to at the time, there was overwhelming legislative support for proposals that went far beyond these specific devices and some that could have potentially jeopardized all semiautomatic firearms. Rather than sit back and watch a legislative over-reaction, the NRA asked Congress to let ATF review its prior determinations on bump fire stocks.
Some have used our October 2017 statement to claim that NRA supports ATF’s final rule, but as NRA-ILA’s Executive Director Chris Cox noted only days after our statement was issued, “We don’t believe that bans have ever worked on anything.”
We also made this clear in our comments to ATF on the proposed rule earlier this year. In our comments, we further advised that ATF should at a minimum make an amnesty period available to deal with the fundamental inequity imposed on law-abiding gun owners who purchased their bump fire stocks in good faith reliance on prior ATF determinations. We continue to pursue the availability of a period of amnesty with the administration.
While there can be disagreement on legislative strategy, it’s important to remember that we will soon face a hostile, anti-gun Congress led by Nancy Pelosi. It’s critical that all gun owners unite and prevent the Bloomberg-bought Congress from dismantling our Second Amendment freedom.
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