Whenever you want to craft a new law, you should consider the false-positive / false-negative test.
You want to make a law to stop bad guys from owning bump stocks.
But how easily will it be for people to circumvent this law with some technicality, and how many bad guys will just trivially rig their guns as automatics if they wanted to anyway with simple tech, and how many 'good guys' who have no intention of shooting anyone will get swept up by draconian sentencing because they were using a bump stock at a firing range or something? Can we say for sure that a ban on bump stocks would cause more harm than good? Say some arbitrary calculation like "good_intent * %false_negative - blackstones_formulation * %false_positive"
And then in general, and with the MA example:
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The problem in the past has been that democrats like Dianne Feinstein in the wake of Las Vegas used it as an opportunity to push ostensible bans on 'bump stocks' that had vague and indeterminate language without any technical definitions, which would have arguably banned all semi-automatics (her definition was 'any part or components that accelerate the rate of fire')
The real trick with this big of legislating is that even though everyone agrees on banning bump stocks, its not exactly easy to do. The only reason bump stocks exist is because of that 'finger-touch-the-trigger' rule from previous legislation- its very easy to create devices that modify a semiautomatic into an automatic, for example a loop and shoelace can be literally classified as a machine gun
Now just because its hard to narrowly ban bump stocks doesn't mean its impossible. Massachusetts defines it as "“Bump stock”, any device for a weapon that increases the rate of fire achievable with such weapon by using energy from the recoil of the weapon to generate a reciprocating action that facilitates repeated activation of the trigger."
But then there's questions of fairness and effectiveness. Its not a fair bill if you're using absurdly exorbitant sentencing for some schmoe who's caught using a bump stock at a firing range for his own amusement and no intention of hurting anyone, yet gets sent away for life in prison worse than a serial rapist murderer. And its not very effective legislation if someone just figures out another way to technically circumvent the rule, or the next mass shooter just jury rigs his shoe lace with minimal effort.
Sentencing disparity is relevant because its one of the NRA's big objections to how MA rolled out their bump stock ban. Even if they had reasonable technical language, their sentencing allowed for life imprisonment for merely owning an inert piece of plastic. Minimum sentence of 18 months, maximum life in prison, just for possession without any 'intent' to do anything evil. That's almost comically draconian. Whats next, if they modify their lower receiver they get drawn and quartered, their children sold into slavery and their lands purged with fire and salt? On its own, its just a piece of plastic with no moving parts, something you could replicate in a basement workshop with minimal skills overnight.
So in short:
- Bump stocks only exist because of the technical shortcomings of previous legislation and its not easy to close all the loopholes
- Its not difficult to convert semi automatics into machine guns without bump stocks, and its possible to bump fire with no attachments or component changes at all, just holding it by your hip
- Bump stocks are not necessarily very effective at making guns deadlier due to their inaccuracy, and its possible to fire semi-automatics as fast by simply pulling your trigger finger faster.
- Legislation punishing bump stock ownership is far more likely to condemn harmless gun enthusiasts in miscarriages of justice than ever actually mitigate any gun violence at all
- Bump stocks are a red herring from a single outlier event than belies the thousands of deaths to ordinary handguns each year, which is the real issue of americas gun problem
- Everyone supports narrow, well crafted legislation banning bump stocks in specific, but radical activists and hysterical nutwings poison the debate by overreaching for poorly crafted, wide-ranging vague bills
This post was edited by Goomshill on Feb 20 2018 10:05pm