• Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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    5 months ago

    However this supreme court said that the magic words ‘bump stock’ wasn’t in the legalisation.

    A bump stock doesn’t make a gun automatic fire, therefore a prohibition on modifications to make a gun automatic fire does not include it. It’s a basic “the law says what it says, you don’t get to add things you don’t like and call them close enough” argument. It’s not about the words “bump stock”, but that the law prohibits modifications to make a gun automatic and a bump stock does not make a gun automatic, it merely makes a method for firing a semiautomatic gun faster easier to achieve.

    Bump firing is basically using the recoil from a shot to bounce your finger off the trigger and then pull the trigger again, which increases the rate of fire. It’s even less accurate than automatic fire (because of the way the gun has to literally bounce around), and not quite as fast (but pretty close). You can do it without a bump stock, but it’s easier to achieve, more accurate and more comfortable to do with one. The fact that when bump firing you only fire a single round for each function of the trigger makes it not automatic by definition.

    The binary triggers mentioned earlier in the thread are basically triggers that will fire both when the trigger is pulled and when it is released, which hypothetically doubles the firing rate of a semiautomatic weapon by not requiring you to release the trigger and pull it again to fire another round. Binary triggers basically come down to an argument of what counts as an “function of the trigger” and whether both pulling and releasing the trigger can count as separate functions of the trigger - if they can then it’s not automatic, if they cannot then it is.

    • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      So much twaddle and dancing around definitions. You could definitely qualify for a spot on Trump’s Supreme Court.

      All they are a modification to turn a semiautomatic gun into a full automatic weapon. That’s it. All the intricate dribble into the contrary doesn’t change that. Water is wet, sky blue, and modifications allowing automatic fire are machine guns.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        5 months ago

        All they are a modification to turn a semiautomatic gun into a full automatic weapon.

        They don’t though. And I went into great detail as to what exactly they do and how it works to explain why they don’t do that.

        An automatic weapon fires more than once per operation of the trigger by definition. Any gun that fires once per operation of the trigger is not automatic by definition.

        A bump stock doesn’t change that, it makes it easier and more accurate to bump.fire, which is basically using the recoil to bounce your finger off the trigger and back onto it to pull it faster than you otherwise would.

        With practice you can bump fire with a regular stock, that doesn’t mean all semiautomatic weapons are actually automatic.

        Like the binary trigger thing - eventually that will be challenged in the courts and the argument won’t be over whether or not the words binary trigger are in the law, but whether or not lifting your finger off the trigger counts as a second operation of the trigger or as part of the previous one because that is what would determine if it fires one or two shots per operation of the trigger and thus whether or not it’s legally automatic and whether or not it is controlled as an automatic weapon.

        The law doesn’t say what you wish it said, and it isn’t exactly vague.

        • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          You went into a ton of detail, thank you. But it is meaningless under the original definition of the act.

          “The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.”

          A bump stock modifies the frame of the gun which converts it into a fully automatic weapon. Don’t just get stuck on the trigger part of the action. The act covers everything, you just can’t cherry pick a single clause and ignore everything else. Otherwise they just might make you into one of Trump’s Supreme Court justices.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            5 months ago

            No, it doesn’t. That’s what I’m getting at. Look at how they define a machine gun in the act. It requires that the gun fire more than once per operation of the trigger (this is also what it means for a firearm to be automatic). A bump stock facilitates operating the trigger again more quickly, but does not fire more then once per operation of the trigger.

            You’re not looking at the definition used in the law but deciding that anything that lets you shoot faster counts.