SCOTUS overturned the bump stock ban (I told you that would happen).
Under the ban people either had to destroy their bump stock or turn it in to the BATFE or risk becoming federal felons.
For 2 decades the BATFE sent out advisement letters to dealers stating that the devices were lawful and did not make a firearm a machine gun. Then on a political whim that all got flushed down the John.
I’ve already had a couple of customers come into my store and ask if they have any options to be reimbursed by the feds for making them destroy property they bought legally because of an illegal law. I have no answer at this time. I’ve received no industry news yet. In reality we didn’t sell very many of them. Maybe a dozen, if that.
I certainly think that if a citizen is forced to surrender or destroy their property and the law is found to be unconstitutional that citizen should be justly compensated. What say you?
BTW, this is not a gun control debate. The item could be widgets for all encompassing purposes.
This isn’t anything like a relevant precedent, but here in the UK, when certain offensive weapons were banned (including bump stocks for rifles), there was a compensation scheme that ran for a limited period.
One of the key problems with compensation schemes of this kind is that people look for a way to game the system - most usually by buying a really cheap example of the item that is being banned, then surrendering it for compensation greater than the price they paid - the UK scheme attempted to circumvent this by requiring proof of purchase, to verify both the price of the item, and that it was not procured immediately before, and for the purposes of, surrender and claim. I imagine some enterprising individuals still managed to work around that though.
Of course, this was the UK, not the USA, so this is only relevant if some aspects of Common Law happen to prevail, I suppose.
Why would they be reimbursed now as opposed to when they were forced to surrender them? They purchased something legally that the government later banned, without any compensation. That was their opportunity to file a class action, IMO.
There are financial benefits to being married that were withheld from gay couples under DOMA until that law was determined to be unconstitutional. Did they get anything? That’s an issue that cost them probably thousands of dollars a year, every year. And people are bitching about the cost of a bump stock?
I’m sure every SCOTUS decision can be looked at through this lens of financial agrievement. But… good lord. The history of the supreme court is rife with classes of people who lost actual rights for substantial parts of their lives due to unconstitutional laws. What a bunch of whiners. The next customer who asks, I hope you set them straight.
Tell 'em they can get in line behind the freed slaves who got no reparations.
Exactly. They can have their two hundred dollar reimbursement for their bump stock having been taken away by the state after the descendants of slaves get their fifty million dollar reimbursement for generations of lives having been “legally” stolen.
“Others have suffered worse than you so suck it up, buttercup”. While that is certainly true it’s not a good way to keep a customer.
Regardless of the item or its value I think folks have a right to be pissed about losing any of their property due to an out of control agency making laws sans congress without just compensation and then having said law be ruled illegal. Them being angry about that in no way diminishes others grievances about wrongs done to them.
Hopefully SCOTUS guts the Chevron Doctrine and we’ll see less of this kind of agency overreach.
I think bump stocks should be banned forever and more than one member of the current SCOTUS should be impeached.
But if we value constitutional order, and we consider property rights to be civil rights (which they are), then people who destroyed their bump stocks should be reimbursed. They broke no law in buying this equipment, and they followed the law in destroying it. They followed the law at every point, and were financially harmed by a regulation found to be unconstitutional, so they should be reimbursed.
If we’re shrugging off the rights of bump stocks owners due the emotional valence, the fact that we don’t like the product or the people who buy it, then we really have no moral standing to complain about other 5th Amendment abuses like civil asset forfeiture.
They wanted the SCOTUS to make bump stocks legal again. That’s what they got. If they don’t like what they got they should ask the SCOTUS to reverse their decision.
Not exactly. The SCOTUS ruling effectively says they were never illegal in the first place. If that’s the case, then citizens were unduly deprived of their property, which is clearly a 5th Amendment violation.
Are we cool saying that Trump can violate the 5th Amendment on a whim, with citizens having no recourse? Because that’s what happened here. Everyone should be against this, no matter how you feel about bump stocks or gun culture.
So what exactly happened when someone owned bump stock after Trump decided to ban them? Did they turn them in someplace? Destroy them? Or hide them? Since it only matters if they turned one in, what happened to the bump stocks in those cases, were they destroyed? Were they given receipts for their bump stocks?
That’s a lot of questions, no need to try to answer everything. In sum, if they did turn in their bump stock somewhere and can prove it then I suppose they can claim they should get it back or be compensated for it. Don’t know if I’d consider their claim valid without all the details.
I have an idea; we could send your bump stock enthusiasts to Las Vegas where they can meet some other people with experience in the use of bump stocks. They can swap stories, hand out photographs, have some laughs and cry about their losses.
If this country is going to start paying real class action reparations for laws and rules deemed unconstitutional, there are millions of people with more valid complaints than these sad sacks who threw away their toys.
There was never a window because the ATF did not create a window, and the legal theory is that we can’t just pull stuff out of our asses.
If congress banned bump stocks and said “And we’ll compensate you all for the purchase price,” that’s fine. If congress banned bump stocks and said, “And you’re screwed, we give you nothing, good day sir,” that’s also fine. That’s how laws work.
The fact that this was an executive order and an executive agency policy rather than a congressional action doesn’t change anything for me. If the ATF wanted to compensate people, they could have. They opted not to. That’s the end of it.
That seems like moving the goalpost a bit, but If they do have the receipt. would you agree in principle that their 5th amendment rights have been violated and they’re entitled to compensation?
Now I’d have to look at the details of the Executive Order and how it was implemented. Just because the SCOTUS says bumps stocks are legal doesn’t mean they were taken from people without due process of law. In general I don’t like the idea of the government taking property without compensation when the constitutionality of the action is open to question.