March 24, 2018

Trump: Bump Stocks Are All Obama’s Fault

Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2017, introducing legislation to ban the sale and possession of bump-stocks. Her bill went nowhere, of course, thanks to NRA opposition and Republican cowardice.Bill Clark/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Donald Trump this morning:

This is actually sort of true, more or less. That’s unusual for Donald Trump. But the reason it’s true is that Obama didn’t interfere when the ATF concluded in 2010 that the law gave them no authority to regulate bump stocks. The Kenyan socialist gun-hating dictator-in-chief then followed the law! Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

Needless to say, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and others have introduced legislation over the years to ban bump stocks as part of a very modest assault weapons ban, but these bills never saw the light of day thanks to NRA and Republican opposition. Last year, Feinstein introduced a bill limited just to banning bump stocks, but it also died thanks to NRA opposition and Republican timidity. Big surprise, eh? So now Trump is going to try to do it via executive order.

Will this work in the face of previous rulings that bump stocks are legal under current law? Will the NRA sue to overturn the EO? If they do, who will the courts side with? We could know the answers to all these questions next week if Republicans simply passed a bill to ban bump stocks. The original ATF ruling was based on statutory interpretation, not constitutional law, so a new law would clean up any confusion instantly. But Republicans are afraid to take even this tiny step for fear of crossing the NRA, so instead we probably won’t know for years.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate