This proposed rule is the best news I have seen in decades, and I pray it withstands court scrutiny, even if it requires adding funding for compensation. I like this because it focuses very narrowly on a single characteristic that undeniably has a material impact on the level of threat to public safety. There will of course still be opposition, but that opposition will be much less broad than what we have seen in the past to things like the AWB that were much more broadly targeted.
Quite simply, there were some legitimate grounds upon which to oppose the AWB among the plainly obvious reasons to support it. But even as a lifelong gun rights advocate, I can see no grounds on which to oppose this ban, and still plenty on which to support it.
I would really like to see Democrats continue to pursue effective firearms regulation, but do a much better job of focusing such efforts on things that would make the most material impact, while retaining the support of the greatest number of reasonable/lawful gun owners, so that we can get more done. And I'm not alone among gun owners who would support much more stringent regulation of capacity and rate of fire, which are the things that matter most in the context of mass shootings.
Simply limiting our regulatory objectives to characteristics that really do make a material/scientifically demonstrable difference that even responsible gun owners will concede (like rate of fire / mode of operation, which are the grounds upon which this rule bans bump stocks) may be the difference between success and failure.
If what we need to do to make something like this rule stand is fund compensation, then I'm all for it. And while we're at it, let's take the exact same approach to high-capacity magazines, which are the other critically important factor alongside rate of fire. Regulate even just rate of fire and capacity, and we can make a huge difference.
= new reply since forum marked as read
