Americans able to buy deadly ‘gangster weapons’ again as lobbying forces key concession from Trump officials
US citizens are free once more to buy some of the country’s most deadly firearms and gun accessories, after relentless lobbying by the gun industry and Republican politicians forced a concession from the Trump administration under the federal government shutdown.
As of this week, gun owners will be able to restart purchases of some of the most highly regulated weapons in the US, with the return to work of federal employees responsible for regulating the items now reclassified as “essential”. They include silencers, short-barreled rifles and vintage machine-guns produced before 1986.
Sales of those items had ground to a halt under the shutdown after federal examiners charged with regulating the purchases were furloughed. The examiners formed part of the NFA division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
SNAP benefits are still cut off so needy children are suffering, but at least rich people can still buy their toys.
The temporary block of sales of these heavily controlled firearms provoked a fierce backlash from industry groups and members of Congress. While sales of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns have proceeded untouched by the government shutdown, and background checks have proceeded as normal, lobbyists argued that the impediment to sales of silencers, pre-1986 machine guns and short-barreled rifles was a violation of Americans’ second amendment rights.
Regular firearm purchases have remained unaffected. The “problem” is that rich people’s toys were being held up. This is about the $200 permission slip you need from the gov to buy full auto or suppressors that was not being processed due to the shutdown. Suppressors are often more than the actual gun to put it on, and the cheapest full auto guns I saw on the first 2 sites that came up started at $10,000.
On 16 October, the firearm industry trade association, the NSSF, wrote to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, protesting that “a right delayed is a right denied”.
Just like for Virginia Giuffre, right? What a POS…
Obviously those are essential to flight a fascist state. I wonder when we will see it actually getting used for that instead of mowing down children.
Nobody has used a machine gun or even full auto in a school shooting. Spreading misinformation, even as a joke, is not helpful.
That is not how you win this war. Spread as much misinformation against fascists as possible. There is no downside to this. You need to muddy the waters to leverage that powerful manipulation tool too. You could be 100 % mega correct all the time, it would simply be irrelevant for propagandized people.
If that’s your strategy, you and I are not on the same side. I’m not going to fight fascists by becoming them.
How is saying bad things about fascists the same as being fascist?
Fascists lie. I don’t want to trade one group of liars for another. Fascists believe the ends justify the means. I don’t want to trade one group that believes that for another. If you try to defeat fascists by acting like them, how far do you have to go before I can’t tell you apart anymore?
As soon as my blue state stops banning them.
Whoops.
Removed by mod
Ya, I’m gonna do a lot of defending with a 22lr. People like you who know next to nothing about firearms are why it’s so easy for ICE to go into your neighborhoods and can start rounding up anyone they want. Real smoothbrain ideas thinking the police were the ones who were always going to defend you. As someone of a darker pigment of skin I can tell you from our history that was a bad choice.
Actually, a 22lr would be a great choice for picking them off from a distance. Very accurate long range, sufficient power. Death isn’t required, just skull penetration. Get a scope, problem solved.
No more excuses.
from a distance
You should probably do some reading on terminal ballistics.
Wait, which state banned what exactly? Are you saying citizens are unable to purchase a firearm in your state?
Silencers and grandfathered fully automatic guns ranging from 10k to 60k are necessary to fight a fascist state? As others have stated, this is just about rich peoples toys.
It was a joke since that was their argument. How is that necessary? Laughable.
How can you just start a part of the government without the rest like funding and everything? That’s a really bad precedent if trump can just activate and deactivate agencies at will…
Because fuck you that’s how
The whole shutdown of government thing only came about via an opinion by the Attorney General in the 1980’s.
Also, Trump’s administration doesn’t seem to really care about precedent.
