Less than eight hours after my call to have the feds ban bump stocks, President Donald Trump essentially did exactly that:
President Trump announced Tuesday afternoon that he has signed a memorandum directing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to propose regulations to ban “bump stocks” and other devices that turn semiautomatic firearms into “machine guns.”
One small step…
The president–who deserves some thanks–started a process that is important by directing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to work through the administrative rules process to ban bump stocks. But let us be most clear–this is not the best way to make this regulation legal.
The administrative rule process is a most slow and stodgy process when the alternative would be a bill that congress could whip out in quick fashion. Having worked with the state’s administrative rules process when handing affairs for the Joint Committee For Review Of Administrative Affairs (JCRAR) I can attest to the slow pace of rule making. There is a reason, of course, for such timelines. Knowing, however, that minus the fact congress which is bought by the NRA, could have dealt with this matter legislatively does only allow partial thanks to Trump. None to Paul Ryan!