In the aftermath of the October 1, 2017
mass shooting in Las Vegas, the Justice Department has proposed a new
rule reclassifying "bump stocks" as machine
guns. President Trump has condemned bump stocks, and even the
National Rifle Association has called for "additional
regulations" on "devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to
function like fully-automatic rifles." The new rule would
require that all existing bump stocks either be turned in or destroyed without compensation.
I don't own any bump stocks. I have no desire to own a
bump stock. I think they're asinine. It's the sort of
device an eighteen-year-old male with more testosterone than common sense
thinks is really cool. Nevertheless, the proposed ban on bump stocks ought to be
resisted. It opens the door to outright confiscation of all
semi-automatic firearms by executive order. This is the very sort of
abuse that initiated the American Revolution.
Installation of a bump stock does not transform a
semi-automatic firearm into a machine gun. A
machine gun is defined by
statutory law (26 USC 5845b) as "any weapon which shoots, is designed to
shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot,
without manual reloading, by a single function of the
trigger." There is no bump stock in which this
happens. Bump stocks merely facilitate rapid fire. Every
time a gun with a bump stock is discharged, there is a single function of the
trigger. That is why on ten separate occasions, between 2008 and
2017, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives issued letters
concluding that bump stocks "did not qualify as machine guns" and
were perfectly legal to manufacture, sell, and possess.
Neither is a bump stock required for rapid firing of a
semi-automatic firearm. Any semi-automatic gun can be bump fired. Think about what that
means. If the Executive Branch of the federal government can
arbitrarily declare that a certain type of stock turns a semi-automatic firearm
into a machine gun because it facilitates bump firing, the Executive can also
reclassify all semi-automatic guns as machine guns, because all semi-autos are
capable of bump firing. It's the realization of Dianne Feinstein's
dream of "turn 'em all in." If this is allowed to stand,
the precedent will have been established for confiscating all semi-automatic
firearms without a single law being enacted or even deliberated.
The proposed bump stock ban is also an unconstitutional
"taking." The
Justice Department wants to compel everyone in possession of a bump stock to
turn it in or destroy it without compensation. This is an explicit
violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the
taking of private property without just compensation.
The last reason to oppose a bump stock ban is the most compelling of
all. Please bear
with me. There is a lesson to be learned from events that unfolded in
seventeenth-century England. In 1685, James II ascended to the
throne and decided he was going to restore the British Isles to
Catholicism. Among the Protestant institutions that James II
intended to subdue was the University of Cambridge. In 1687, Cambridge
was ordered by James II to appoint a Catholic monk to the faculty, an illegal
act. Under intense pressure, the faculty at Cambridge agreed to a
compromise. The Catholic monk would be admitted with the
understanding that this was to be a single exception from which no precedent
could be drawn. The controversy was apparently settled, when a man
stood up and voiced his objection to the arrangement. He said,
"This is giving up the question." Singlehandedly,
one person convinced the entire body of the faculty to resist on the basis of
law and principle. Cambridge fought the king and won.
Who was this moral absolutist who refused to compromise
principle? Who was this intransigent iconoclast? You will
recognize his name: Isaac Newton, the greatest genius the human race has ever
produced.
If we agree to ban bump stocks because they facilitate rapid
firing, we have given up the question. We have agreed in principle
that any dangerous gun can be banned and confiscated by an arbitrary executive
order. All guns are capable of rapid fire, and all
guns are inherently dangerous. Pump-action shotguns can
be rapidly fired and
reloaded. Jerry
Miculek can fire five shots from a double-action revolver in 0.57
seconds. High-capacity magazines most certainly facilitate rapid
fire, so they also will have to go. A writer who
wants to ban all "private individual ownership of firearms" recently
argued that "even bolt-action rifles can still fire surprisingly fast in
skilled hands." He's right. All magazine-fed guns
will be outlawed.
There is no compromise involved or proposed here. In
return for a ban on bump stocks, we get exactly nothing – the same situation we
have been through now for eighty-four years. Despite the fact that
the Constitution forbids any "infringement" of our right to keep and
bear arms, we have endured repeated trespasses. In less than a
hundred years, we have been subjected to the National Firearms Act of 1934, the
Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Act of 1993, and countless state
restrictions on our rights. If we would be honest with ourselves, we
would admit that half the Second Amendment is already gone.
Should we surrender on bump
stocks? No. Hell no. As a speaker at
the recent gun control march on Washington, D.C. admitted,
"when they give us that inch, that bump stock ban, we will take a
mile." Appeasement only encourages more depredation and
encroachment. Never
give up your weapons!
David Deming is professor of arts and
sciences at the University of Oklahoma and author of the series Science and Technology in World History.