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The SCOTUS Bump Stock decision just made the crazies more powerful this November [1]

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Date: 2024-06-14  

I’m torn on writing this article. In part because I don’t like spreading fear and in part because I don’t like giving the crazy’s any more ideas. That said, I feel those concerns are outweighed by the danger posed by our adversaries this November and how the Supreme Court’s decision in Garland V Cargill to strike down the ban on bump stocks gives our adversaries one more tool.

Bump Stocks are modifications made to semi-automatic rifles to make them faster to fire. Semi-automatic rifles work by using the kickback of the shot being fired to prime the bolt to be ready to fire the next round, ejects the used casing and chambers the next bullet. This allows a semi-automatic rifle to fire a bullet every pull of the trigger which makes them very fast. The difference between a semi-automatic rifle and a fully automatic rifle is that with full automatic you simply hold the trigger and the gun will keep firing until you let go of the trigger or run out of rounds. Machine guns are fully automatic. Military grade assault rifles usually have a full automatic mode (as well as semi-automatic modes and some have a 3 round “burst” mode). A bump stock technically is a semi-automatic because it preserves the one trigger pull per shot fired but due to how the bump stock moves it allows the user to greatly speed up the rate of fire closer to that of a full automatic.

Bump stocks have no value in “sport” shooting which values gun accuracy as the action of the bump and the heavy recoil makes them highly inaccurate. In hunting there are no scenarios in which a bump stock is more useful than a semi-automatic, and even semi-automatics are only needed if your first shot doesn’t bring down the target. (If you wound a deer, making sure it dies quickly is probably kinder than letting it walk around with a gunshot wound. Obviously not shooting it in the first place is far kinder). What a bump stock weapon is good for is putting many bullets down range as quickly as possible at low accuracy which is only useful for terrorists and the military. Hence the desire for the original ban on them.

Many times in military engagements, the use of semi-automatic fire is encouraged over fully automatic fire to conserve ammo and be more accurate. Unfortunately terrorists frequently don’t even have the concern of conservation of ammo or accuracy to hold them back as they come with as much ammo as they can carry and they don’t care who they shoot so long as they shoot someone. Bump stocks allow terrorist to legally obtain weapons which allow them to carry out their mayhem.

Common clip size is 30 in many states and some states allow 100 round barrel drums. This further increases the terrorist style attraction as fast rates of fire mean you go through bullets quicker and a large magazine means you don’t need to reload as often. Bump stocks are useless for the military as they are allowed to use a full automatic rifle anyway. So the only people who want a bump stock are the crazies and the terrorists.

And now the Supreme Court just put these weapons back on the easy to obtain menu for all those crazies on the right. Weaponizing the crazies (further) just in time for some stochastic violence in November is already bad enough. But unfortunately the GOP has gone full fascist. They used organized violence on Jan 6th, 2021 and thankfully left the guns home (sorta). While a decent number of the more violent Jan 6th insurrectionists are currently involved in some way with the legal system and hopefully won’t be capable of participating this election cycle, we can’t assume there aren’t more willing to take their place. Furthermore, Russia has continually worked to destabilize our democracy. There have been recent reports in Europe of Russian-connected actions against buildings related to Ukraine’s war efforts. (See the June 7th podcast of Ukraine, the Latest from the Telegraph). If Russia determines that Trump has a poor chance of winning on his own, they could help instigate violence on Election Day either directly or through social media “organizing.”

Such violence may look random but do not be surprised to see it happen only in heavily democratic districts of battleground states. We have so far been lucky that the fascists have not sunk so low. But the Russians are not beyond such attacks and after Jan 6th, 2021 there appears to be enough Republicans far enough on the side of violence that we can’t rule it out for them either.

We are not defenseless. We can and should press governments at all levels to put maximum resources into having a safe and fair election. The Jan 6th insurrection happened in part due to law enforcement’s failure to perform proper intelligence gathering and to proactively act upon what information they did gather. We cannot let that happen again. While some law enforcement agencies have no doubt been compromised, we need to leverage those that haven’t to pick up the slack.

Finally we can GOTV to make sure that the election doesn’t come down to a few states. The more we can run up the electoral college score the less likely such attempts will succeed in the ultimate goal of throwing the election.

I am not saying these things will come to pass. I am writing to make sure people are aware that we no longer live in a world in which such actions would be highly unlikely. We are up against people with no moral compass. Many of the Jan 6th insurrectionists saw themselves as patriots and/or revolutionaries. Violence this November during the election is just a single step further. Hopefully they don’t take that step, but we need to be prepared if they do.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/14/2246734/-The-SCOTUS-Bump-Stock-decision-just-made-the-crazies-more-powerful-this-November?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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