by Bob Barr | Jul 24, 2024 | Uncategorized |
The Regulatory Review In Garland v. Cargill, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its statutory authority in issuing a final rule that classified bump stocks as machine guns. Assessment of this common-sense opinion must start with a review of the National Firearms Act, which defines a “machine gun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” The definition also includes “any part designed and intended solely and exclusively… for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun.” In contrast to a machine gun, which can fire multiple shots when its trigger is engaged once, a semiautomatic firearm can fire only one shot per trigger engagement. There are shooting techniques, however, to increase the rate at which semiautomatic firearms can be fired. One technique is “bump firing.” When bump firing, the shooter keeps his trigger finger stationary, while allowing the recoil energy from firing the gun to push the gun backward quickly and reset the trigger. Simultaneously, the shooter applies forward pressure on the gun with his non-trigger hand to “bump” the trigger into his still-stationary trigger finger, which fires a subsequent shot. When done effectively, bump firing allows semiautomatic firearms to fire at rates approaching machine guns. A bump stock is a device that makes bump firing easier. Importantly, even with a bump stock, the Court noted that “as with any semiautomatic firearm, the trigger still must be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot.” Moreover, bump firing—with or without a bump stock—requires significant manual input from the shooter....
by Bob Barr | Jul 24, 2024 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller On Monday, Kimberly Cheatle, the now-former Director of the U.S. Secret Service, “testified” (I use the term loosely) publicly before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Unsurprisingly (to me, at least), the lengthy session produced not a shred of evidence not previously known to the public. The only surprise at the end of the day was that some members of the committee actually appear to have expected otherwise. At least some members of the Committee on both sides of the aisle seem to be unfamiliar with one of the foundational principles on which governments (including our own) operate: bureaucracies are designed and operate in such a way as to avoid accountability. This is hardly breaking news. The National Academy of Public Service has published extensively about the “culture of unaccountability that hampers the government’s operations.” Congress has considered “reviving” the Constitution’s Appointments Clause to force presidential appointments to be more accountable. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years has tightened – not relaxed — standing requirements that must be met in order to hold government officials accountable by court action. I learned this lesson in unaccountability in 1995, during my first term in the House. Nothing I have seen since has changed my opinion about government aversion to accountability. The context in which the immutability of government un-accountability came clear to me was the series of hearings in which I participated in Spring 1995 to investigate the tragedy two years prior at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas; a tragedy of horrendous proportions during which four federal law enforcement officers and more than 70 civilian...
by Bob Barr | Jul 11, 2024 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller It has been two weeks since U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory on what he declares to be the latest “public health crisis” in America. An “Advisory” issued by the Surgeon General is supposed to be employed when, in the learned opinion of that official, the American people must be made aware that they face an urgent public health issue, in other words, an “emergency.” Unlike his predecessors, who employed the bully pulpit of their office to crusade against arguably public health-related issues such as smoking and AIDS, Murthy’s June 25th “Surgeon General’s Advisory” has nothing to do with any reasoned or common sense definition of health. It does, however, have everything to do with politics; in this case, the one policy issue liberals invariably turn to as a way to rally their base — gun control. Murthy dutifully declares “firearm violence” the latest and most urgent “public health crisis” facing our country; not heart failure, not cancer, not obesity, but guns. In doing this, he cheapens the role and responsibility of the nation’s preeminent public health official. Much of the mainstream media was breathless in drawing attention to the Surgeon General’s call to action against the scourge of violence committed by individuals misusing firearms. CNN, for example, lauded Murthy at length for joining the gun control hallelujah chorus. MyChesCo called it a “Landmark Step.” The partisan, political perspective unsurprisingly reflected in CNN’s article praising Murthy’s gun-control missive was obvious in the video placed atop the opinion piece – a photograph not of the Surgeon General but a video of President Biden. There has been little public discourse spawned by the firearms violence...
