Just wanted to update with the latest so far. I believe that most of us knew that the outcome was going to be rigged but I wanted to document it for future generations as to why the government is corrupt at every level.
https://www.regulations.gov/comment?...2018-0002-0001=
"IV. Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Based on ATF's initial review of the comments it received on the ANPRM, the vast majority of comments concern the legal authority to regulate bump-stock-type devices. Some of those comments opined that the Department has the power to regulate bump-stock-type devices.
Most, however, contended that the Department lacks such authority, either because only Congress has the authority to regulate bump-stock-type devices or because the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution precludes any federal regulation of such devices.
The Department disagrees. Congress has granted the Attorney General authority to issue rules to administer the GCA and NFA, and the Attorney General has delegated to ATF the authority to administer and enforce those statutes and implementing regulations. See supra Part I. Because, with some exceptions, the possession of a machinegun is prohibited by the GCA,
the Department is well within its authority to issue a rule that further clarifies and interprets the statutory definition of machinegun. Nor is regulation of bump-stock-type devices as machineguns inconsistent with the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), noted that the Second Amendment does not extend to “`dangerous and unusual weapons'” not in “`common use.'” Id. at 627. Heller further observed that it would be “startling” to conclude “that the National Firearms Act's restrictions on machineguns . . . might be unconstitutional.” Id. at 624. Since Heller, federal courts of appeals have repeatedly held that federal statutes prohibiting machineguns comport with the Second Amendment. See, e.g., Hollis v. Lynch, 827 F.3d 436, 451 (5th Cir. 2016) (upholding federal statute banning possession of machineguns because they are “dangerous and unusual and therefore not in common use”); accord United States v. Henry, 688 F.3d 637, 640 (9th Cir. 2012); United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85, 94-95 (3d Cir. 2010); Hamblen v. United States, 591 F.3d 471, 472, 474 (6th Cir. 2009); United States v. Fincher, 538 F.3d 868, 874 (8th Cir. 2008). No court has interpreted Heller as encompassing a constitutional right to possess machineguns or machinegun conversion devices.
Numerous persons commented that bump-stock-type devices do not fall under the statutory definition of “machinegun because, when attached, they do not change the mechanical functioning of a semiautomatic firearm, and still require a separate trigger pull for each fired round.” They noted that bump firing is a technique, and pointed to many other ways in which a shooter can increase a firearm's rate of fire without using a bump-stock-type device.
The Department disagrees. The relevant statutory question is whether a particular device causes a firearm to “shoot * * * automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” 26 U.S.C. 5845(b). Bump firing and other techniques for increasing the rate of fire do not satisfy this definition because they do not produce an automatic firing sequence with a single pull of the trigger. Instead, bump firing without an assistive device requires the shooter to exert pressure with the trigger finger to re-engage the trigger for each round fired. The bump-stock-type devices described above, however, satisfy the definition.
ATF's classification decisions between 2008 and 2017 did not reflect the best interpretation of the term “automatically” as used in the definition of “machinegun,” because those decisions focused on the lack of mechanical parts like internal springs in the bump-stock-type devices at issue. The bump-stock-type devices at issue in those rulings, however, utilized the recoil of the firearm itself to maintain an automatic firing sequence initiated by a single pull of the trigger. As with the Akins Accelerator, the bump-stock-type devices at issue cause the trigger to “bump” into the finger, so that the shooter need not pull the trigger repeatedly to expel ammunition. As stated above, ATF previously focused on the trigger itself to interpret “single function of the trigger,” but adopted a better legal and practical interpretation of “function” to encompass the shooter's activation of the trigger by, as in the case of the Akins Accelerator and other bump-stock-type devices, a single pull that causes the weapon to shoot until the ammunition is exhausted or the pressure on the trigger is removed. Because these bump-stock-type devices allow multiple rounds to be fired when the shooter maintains pressure on the extension ledge of the device,
ATF has determined that bump-stock-type devices are machinegun conversion devices, and therefore qualify as machineguns under the GCA and the NFA. See infra Part V.
