You got that right. But so are us “Trojan Horses.”
“Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday the Trump administration should move quickly to ban ‘bump stocks’– a device used in the Las Vegas mass shooting that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire more rapidly,” The Hill reported Wednesday. “’We think the regulatory fix is the smartest, quickest fix, and I’d frankly like to know how it happened in the first place,’ Ryan said at a news conference in the Capitol.”
The guy had never even heard of bump stocks a week ago:
“I didn’t even know what they were until this week, and I’m an avid sportsman,” Ryan said of bump stocks. He added: “Fully automatic weapons have been banned for a long time. Apparently, this allows you to take a semiautomatic, turn it into a fully automatic, so clearly that’s something we need to look into.”
This guy’s the Speaker? And now he’s set to ban them in a way that places arbitrary decision-making in the hands of ATF – an agency that can’t keep its own rules and records straight. Doing it that way gives Ryan the added benefit of maintaining the illusion of “pro-gun” bona fides, and leaves Congress, the people’s representatives, unaccountable for the fallout, or for political payback.
And he’s getting away with it because the National Rifle Association (along with NSSF and SAAMI) gave Republicans the green light to proceed:
“Despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law. The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”
They’ve all been convinced that they have to give up something ever since Newtown — I know because I was privy to some conversations and correspondence at the time where a few of us let it be known that we would not allow them to scapegoat gun owners and walk away unreported. And they’re all subscribing to the absurd, not-found-in-Nature theory that that you can throw a scrap of flesh to a pack of circling jackals, and sated, they’ll go away and leave you alone. Instead of deciding there’s plenty more where that came from.
“Oh, but you fail to understand the genius move,” I’ve been told by “pragmatic” NRA apologists. Bump stocks aren’t a hill worth dying on. Plus we’ll get suppressors and concealed carry reciprocity. As soon as things cool off. Well sure, the midterms are coming up but we can trust the Republican leadership. When have they ever let us down?
Besides, if this goes to legislation, the Democrats will come up with something really bad.
They already have, and it’s being co-led by “turncoat Republicans.” But instead of reining them in and reminding everyone why the GOP enjoys a majority in the House and Senate, and the presidency, thanks to gun owners, and that they can turn back any legislation as long as they have the guts and the will, and instead of giving them the information needed to educate and inform their constituents, we see a base political calculation that the problem will go away if only we throw something under the bus.
Make that “someone.” A lot of someones, particularly those whose lives will be destroyed if they’re caught in violation of such “regulations”…
Ah, but “good, law-abiding Americans” wouldn’t do that says former NRA President Marion Hammer, who claims to be “refuting misinformation & distortion of facts.”
In her mind, NRA isn’t calling for new regulation, simply correcting a prior ATF “wink and nod” oversight, and besides, it’s the bump stock manufacturer’s fault anyway for trying to game the system. Just like all those workarounds to “assault weapon” cosmetics NRA has previously defended? Or will thumbhole stocks and the like be the next expendables?
In her mind, NRA directors questioning the preemptive surrender are doing so to “elevate their own popularity.” Never mind that the proclamation was made without consulting the Board.
Members who question it are “dissidents and ‘Trojan Horse members.” Not the first time I’ve been called that…
We’re disloyal. Heretics. NRA bashers. Where have I heard that before?
As for “misinterpreting what the NRA has said,” how you can do that by providing a link to the statement and an exact quote remains unsaid.
Here’s where she goes completely off the rails:
“[L]ike all good, honest, law-abiding Americans, the NRA obeys the law… NRA has called for enforcing existing law. “
So had this been at the time of the Revolution, NRA’s position would have been “Enforce existing Intolerable Acts”? And if you engage in the time-honored American tradition of civil disobedience against edicts that violate “the supreme Law of the Land,” you’re neither “good” nor “honest”?
Who are the real law-breakers here?
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this position—and wording – used by NRA.
“Bill did what any honest, law-abiding American would do…he turned in his SKS Sporter to the police.”
That’s what NRA’s Ginny Simone said about a gun confiscation in California 15 years ago, when NRA’s lawyer provided the escort service for the firearm surrender.
So if Dianne Feinstein succeeds in making “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in” a reality, Hammer and the NRA would consider refusal to do so dishonest and bad?
Turn ‘em all in, Captain Parker?
In the interests of full disclosure (although the people who actually know me trust me to be good and honest) I fall far short of Hammer’s criteria for being “law-abiding.” I not only illegally carried a gun (on the advice of a concerned cop investigating a death threat against me) in Southern California because I literally couldn‘t get a “permit” to save my life, but I also very publicly refused to register my “assault weapon” even after NRA arranged a surrender-fest.
Think about the orders Oath Keepers will not obey. The very first one:
“We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.”
I’m an American. I will not obey orders to disarm me. It’s not just my birthright, it’s my duty.
As for bump stocks not being a hill to die on, it’s not about bump stocks. Think of those as the MacGuffin, as interchangeable as the Maltese Falcon, the Pink Panther diamond, or Peewee’s bicycle. It’s about “shall not be infringed.”
It’s about not surrendering and giving an enemy that has made no secret of its ultimate goal of total disarmament a beachhead from which to launch its next incursion. If it’s bump stocks today, what will it be tomorrow that “good, law-abiding Americans” will be told to surrender – and branded “dissidents and ‘Trojan Horses’” by NRA’s “leaders” if we object?
And when it;s too late to “vote to change the law” because NRA showed deliberate indifference to the single biggest threat against the Second Amendment by falling back on the wholly disingenuous “single issue” excuse?
It’s no accident they’ve never signaled which hill is worth dying on, if any.
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