Sotomayer Doesn't Understand Guns

[JimL]

So it should be illegal t o have the ability to not apply too forward pressure or too little pressure. You're wanting to outlaw having a certain amount of manual dexterity. As demonstrated, a bump stock doesn't make a gun have a firing rate on par with an automatic weapon. It barely even improves fire rate. It's the basic mentality of "ban scary looking gun".

Bump stocks are comparable to machine guns in fire power regardless of the technical difference in their operation. That's why bump stocks were created.

[Diogenes]

Bump stocks are comparable to machine guns in fire power regardless of the technical difference in their operation.

The video I posted demonstrably contradicts this.

[Terraceth]

I suggest you descend from theory for a moment to realistically consider the US political situation. This congress has passed a record low number of pieces of legislation, substantially beating the record set by the previous Republican-majority do-nothing congress which passed record few pieces of legislation in US history. How likely is a ban on something to do with firearms, however warranted that ban, likely to be brought up and passed in a Republican-majority congress at the best of times, and how much less likely in a do-nothing Republican-majority congress?

At the time when the Trump administration created this ban, he probably could have gotten his congress to do it through law. Whereas at the current time there isn't a serious chance of it being done by law. I suggest you be a bit less OCD about whether the correct paperwork was done to pass this change in the truly correct way (congress vs government regulator), and consider that at the time when this change was ordered by Trump there was indeed bipartisan interest in doing it, so if the Trump admin wasn't blitheringly incompetent that it filed its paperwork badly, then the congress of that time would have passed it by law. But the congress of this time won't.

I suggest that rather than obsess over whether the change was made in the technically legally correct way, you rather consider questions such as: Was there bipartisan support for making the change at the time it was made? Is the change positive in function? Is reimplementing the change in the technically legally correct way in the present very likely? I suggest the answer to the first two questions is yes, and the third is no, and that hence that striking down the change is an exercise in OCD that is harmful to America in effect.

I do not think it is "OCD" to think that laws should be passed legally.

Congressional gridlock is a problem. But the idea that this means the Executive Branch can simply change the laws themselves without permission from congress (the technically legally correct way) seems more of a problem. While granting unilateral lawmaking ability to one person (technically to a bunch of people, but because all the agencies are under the President's power it ultimately comes down to one person) certainly would solve a lot of gridlock, it also brings in a whole lot of very obvious problems itself.

[eider]

The purpose in these mass shootings is to target persons, not just to spray lots of bullets indiscriminately.

Handguns are the most common weapon type used in mass shootings in the United States, with a total of 166 different handguns being used in 116 incidents between 1982 and December 2023. These figures are calculated from a total of 149 reported cases over this period, meaning handguns are involved in about 78 percent of mass shootings.
source

Trying to guess what can happen in the future by looking back in to the past is not a good idea.
VFFs can change the picture beyond recognition with the past.

[eider]

Training can produce "a very fast firing gun" -- even out of an old fashioned revolver.

,..............

The point being, in the hands of a trained shootist, almost any firearm, including single action revolvers, can become "a very fast firing gun."

But now anybody can shoot more quickly. Duh!

[eider]

99% of all gun owners are legal, use guns for protection, hunting, and plain old fun (contests/target shooting, etc).

So you want to let your honest public to buy machine VFF guns maybe?
This a stupid as your ideas about school security.

I guess you would think we should ban cars because a small percentage of cars are used in crimes and killing people?

I think you should be allowed to have a little car, Sparko.....just a little one, mind you.

[eider]

No, I'm not foaming at the mouth mad.

But I do worry about you. Anybody who imagines mental hospital patients as foaming at the mouth is off his rocker......quite impaired.

Bump stocks (VFF) have been used in 1 Mass shooting. So, banning them doesn't do anything to solve the issue. More importantly, the EO didn't follow the constitution. Your rant above would seem to suggest that you don't really care about that last part. Perhaps you feel we should go the route of Nayib Bukele and El Salvador?

And now you are ranting....! You see....I'm worried about you.
Well now your whole country knows about bump stocks, knows that they are legal and can acquire them.

[eider]

Well that was a clumsy attempt at distraction.

Let's try it again.

You declared that

this is clearly a case of far rightist extremists bent on passing judgments with the simple intention of upsetting their political opponents

Which led me to naturally ask

Who exactly would those political opponents be? This was an EO that OMB signed that was overturned. Are you saying that OMB is their political opponent?

Your "curious" response in its entirety

Show up!

So I tried again and got the above word salad that I'm now responding to.

So let's see if the third times the charm...

The Supreme Court overturned an executive order signed by OMB, which returned things to the way they were under Obama.

So, who in your mind was the Court trying to upset?

More rogueanonymous rubbish.
The overturning of the bump stock ban has just occured, passed by your Supreme Court. So it's no good you trying to look blame former President Obama for anything.

[CivilDiscourse]

But I do worry about you. Anybody who imagines mental hospital patients as foaming at the mouth is off his rocker......quite impaired.



And now you are ranting....! You see....I'm worried about you.
Well now your whole country knows about bump stocks, knows that they are legal and can acquire them.

No ranting. Unlike you, I'm not making unhinged screeds full of emotive language.

[Cow Poke]

Trying to guess what can happen in the future by looking back in to the past is not a good idea.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."--George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.

VFFs can change the picture beyond recognition with the past.

You're trying to guess what can happen in the future.

[rogue06]

So what? If there are other kinds of attachments that accomplish the same goal as a machine gun does which is the killing of as many people as quickly as is possible, then they should be banned as well. That's the point of it's being banned.

The purpose is to make them fire faster not to kill more people.

That's sort of like claiming that cars that are built which exceed the speed limit have the goal of causing more fatal wrecks.

[rogue06]

So it should be illegal t o have the ability to not apply too forward pressure or too little pressure. You're wanting to outlaw having a certain amount of manual dexterity. As demonstrated, a bump stock doesn't make a gun have a firing rate on par with an automatic weapon. It barely even improves fire rate. It's the basic mentality of "ban scary looking gun".

Which was exactly what the original assault weapons ban did. It had nothing whatsoever to do with functionality and everything to do with cosmetics -- appearances.

And in all honesty if I had someone with a rifle shooting at me I would far more prefer facing an idiot with a bump stock than someone without one since the bump stock does a serious number on accuracy.

[Cow Poke]

Which was exactly what the original assault weapons ban did. It had nothing whatsoever to do with functionality and everything to do with cosmetics -- appearances.

And in all honesty if I had someone with a rifle shooting at me I would far more prefer facing an idiot with a bump stock than someone without one since the bump stock does a serious number on accuracy.

And he/she is therefore likely to run out of bullets faster.

[rogue06]

Bump stocks are comparable to machine guns in fire power regardless of the technical difference in their operation. That's why bump stocks were created.

Bump stocks were created to increase the ROF of a semiautomatic at the price of accuracy. But the fact is that the bump stock's increase in speed is nowhere near the ROF of a full automatic. Not at all comparable. AFAICT they increase the speed for the average shooter by roughly 25% over a regular semiautomatic. Might be a bit more or a bit less, but in any case not even close to the speed of a full automatic.

[Cow Poke]

Bump stocks were created to increase the ROF of a semiautomatic at the price of accuracy. But the fact is that the bump stock's increase in speed is nowhere near the ROF of a full automatic. Not at all comparable. AFAICT they increase the speed for the average shooter by roughly 25% over a regular semiautomatic. Might be a bit more or a bit less, but in any case not even close to the speed of a full automatic.

All of this attention is related to the Las Vegas mass shooting where the shooter had a "hide" on the 32nd floor and BUNCHES of weapons, and "target density" such that accuracy was not critical.
It's an emotional over-reaction that even caused the ATF to change the definition of machine gun to include rifles equipped with bump-stocks.

If anybody is interested, here is Garland vs Cargill.