Why is Trump eroding away our 2nd Amendment rights? Getting rid of the bump stock and sending a letter to SCOTUS about suppressors not being used.
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Why is Trump eroding away our 2nd Amendment rights? Getting rid of the bump stock and sending a letter to SCOTUS about suppressors not being used.
8 replies on “Trump is anti-2nd Amendment”
I agree with you Jeff. I don’t own a suppressor or a bump stock. My main point is taking away the ancillary parts to guns/firearms that one believes cause violent crimes. In most mass shootings bump stocks are not used. Criminals don’t get suppressors for many reasons. Taking them away from the law abiding citizens, who don’t commit violent crimes is an anti gunner move, in my opinion.
The ban on bump stocks and suppressors may have a more direct reason. There are rumours of undisclosed assassination attempts on Trump and staff. There was even a rumour at the Las Vegas Harvest Festival concert that he may attend. If true he may see both weapons as a direct personal threat.
Unfortunately, I think Trump is a true populist. I think he is listening to the loudest voices in the crowd, and perceives that pleasing them will please the greater majority, regardless of the Constitution. I wish I could say Trump is a constitutionalist, but if I did it would be, at best, wishful thinking. My only comfort is that the current SCOTUS seems to hold stare decisis in high regard. With the McDonald, Heller, and Miller opinions, we have a hope, perhaps a slim one, that the SCOTUS will rule in our favor. Sadly, I think suppressors will be banned.
Unfortunately, nobody will ever be the perfect president. Even Reagan signed Simpson-Mazzoli.
There is a lot of pressure on him and others to do something and the ‘free for all’ option is worthless at the polling booth. Trump has no more gun votes to win. He has many scared undecided votes to win. There is no real legal reason to have a bump stock or silencer and many nasty illegal reasons to have either.
If you are afraid your going to end up fighting the US government you need mortars and howitzers not just AR 15’s. You need to be in control of the congress not fighting it from some remote mountain retreat [that’s one B 52 away from being pulverised].
This is the problem. Do you want a well ordered militia? What does that mean? Do you want nutters with guns, always left of centre, shooting up civilians and making gun owners look bad? Yes taking guns off good people to prevent the nutters getting them will fail but unless your taking a working plan to Trump you’ve lost. What plan is better than any safeguard yet proposed? While that is unanswered he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He has nominated a known gun control advocate to the ATF, a police fraternal leader, Chuck Canterbury, precisely to push the gun lobby to step up with a sane solution. The Gun Owners of America have to figure out how to get the number of gun murders and suicides down. How do you identify an insane gun owner and deal with it? How do you do so without the left defining everyone on the right as insane?
In Australia we are working though things similarly.
Bruce, respectfully, I would make a couple points.
1. I think you have a point that there might be a political reason that Trump would supporting banning bump stocks and suppressors. It could, as you say, win some moderate voters over.
2. I think there is a pragmatic element to the 2nd amendment in regards to what one might do with arms (i.e. resist domestic tyranny primarily, perhaps defend your person, family, property and effects, and even resisting foreign threats)
3. The primarily philosophy behind the 2nd amendment is not that one has to justify exercising those rights with sufficient pragmatic explanation. Rather these right are inherent right, not granted by the constitution, only protected by them. So its not simply that I have to justify why I need something. Rather government (or anyone else) has to have just cause, based on my OWN actions, to deprive me of it.
4. So I have to respectfully disagree with the assertion that there is no legal reason to have a bump stock and a “silencer”. My general philosophy, is that if someone wants a bump stock or a suppressor, then that’s their choice. I use the term suppressor, rather than silencer, since if one has shot a gun with a suppressor, they would know that it does not silence the firearm like you see in the movies. It does, however, make it much easier to shoot without hurting your ears. (Full disclosure, I have not shot a gun with a suppressor, but ive been at the range and seen others do so) And ive not seen a compelling case that it makes it easier to commit crimes… The owning of these things is not nasty. Only the misusing of them is. And it’s a slippery slope from “we have the inherent right” to “prove to the government that you need it.”
5. Finally, I do like your question about how we should Identify insane gun owners. However, I think the important point is the “insane” part, rather than the “gun owner” part. Since insanity can lead to crime with a variety of tools… Guns have been ubiquitous in the US for a long time. The problem with widespread violence is far more recent. And the instances of defensive gun use are almost never reported. So I think the gun is a red herring from what has happened culturally and societally to lead to this kind of violence.
Note for the community. This is my first entrance into a discussion. So if this is not the right way, or tone, or length that is generally expected by community standards please let me know. I love discussion, but want to do it in a way that the community finds helpful rather than annoying.
Thank you,
Jeff
Join the discussion…As far as I am concerned your tone is spot on. And the length is good. You do not ramble or cover many topics. And putting things under numbers is something I would do.
Well said Jeff and you got my points that is what matters.