David Codrea, bless his always on-the-ball self, has taken a deep dive into ATF paperwork and surfaced again with hard questions for the infamous bureau and the Trump administration.
The issue is bump stocks, the attempt to ban them — and more. David links to the original documents (FOIAed by wonder-attorney Stephen Stamboulieh) if you want to take that same dive.
Note that the power of the names Savage and Stamboulieh (aided perhaps by a slight desire to dodge blame while throwing some other fedgov agency under a bus) pulled those 700+ pages of documents out of the ATF in days, rather than the standard months, years, or never.
The crux:
This is a power-grab by the executive branch that will set the tone for this and future administrations to arbitrarily change definitions, impose bans with destruction/surrender orders and turn non-compliant citizens into felons, all while bypassing Congress.
It’s not hard to imagine what a Democrat president would do if such power becomes the accepted norm. It’s not hard to imagine them taking full and gleeful advantage of it, with fawning media support and no shortage of appointed-for-life activist federal judges eager to rule in favor of infringements.
Many gunfolk seem willing to “give” the ATF and the antis bump stocks for the same reason Chamberlain was willing to cede chunks of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. Peace in our time. And hey, it’s only Czechoslovakia bump stocks. Most people never even heard of them before Mandalay Bay. Let them go and maybe the antis will leave us alone for a while.
Do we need to say that surrender wouldn’t be a good idea — even if there weren’t so much else at stake?
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I apologize to Len Savage, who saw to it that I got all the same documents David did. But I wasn’t in a good place to do anything about them (and when it comes to bureaucratic docs, I’m not sure there’s ever a good time or place).
I must confess, my first reaction was “give them bump stocks, who cares?” Should have known better. The only good news out of this, is that more people have guns now, thanks to the gun grabber’s hysterics. The trend is very bad though, we are still only one supreme court justice from confiscation everywhere.
The original signed drafts of the Munich Agreement are on permanent display at the Czech Army Museum in Prague, a 2-mile walk from my flat. An interesting fact: of all the powers who had voting representatives in Munich, do you know who was not included? Czechoslovakia. The French, Germans, Soviets, British- even the ITALIANS had a voice in the dismemberment and abandonment of Czechoslovakia. The 1st Republic was limited to a single nonvoting “official observer” whose task it was to observe as the greater powers of Europe sacrificed his country to the Hitlerites and then to report back to his government that theirs was a choice of resisting German arms alone, treaties be damned, or capitulating at once. We know the choice they made. So far as one American and about 14,000,000 Czechs and Slovaks are concerned, the blood of Lidice and Ležaky and a thousand other places are on the hands which signed that treble-damned document. If only the free peoples of Europe had stood together and not backed down, how much horror could have been turned aside? Sadly, our timeline will never know.
“An interesting fact: of all the powers who had voting representatives in Munich, do you know who was not included? Czechoslovakia.”
Speechless. Not surprised, really. But speechless.
Peace in our time.
[sigh]
How many times does that lesson have to be taught before folks learn it?