Parkland Survivor: ‘When They Give Us That Inch, That Bump Stock Ban, We Will Take a Mile’

An attendee at a rally against gun violence holds signs that read "March for Our Lives Mar
AP/Ted S. Warren

During Saturday’s student march for gun control, Parkland shooting survivor Delany Tarr made clear that she and other gun controllers plan to parlay a bump stock ban into numerous other gun controls.

Tarr spoke to the crowd and Think Progress quoted her saying, “When they give us that inch, that bump stock ban, we will take a mile.”

Tarr’s statement exposes the threat to freedom tied to the bump stock ban from day one. After all, bump stocks do not convert semiautomatic firearms into automatic ones, so banning them as if they do opens the door to banning numerous other devices that do not convert the actions of semiautomatic either.

Former ATF gun tech chief Rick Vasquez sounded this alarm in January when he warned that a bump stock will lead to other bans.

He told the Military Arms Channel, “So ATF’s been directed to write a regulation with the strength of a law.” He said the advance notice copy of the new rule makes clear that the ATF’s new regulation will ban “any device that automatically resets a firearm and enhances the rate of fire.” He added, “They are trying to target binary triggers, [bump stock] devices, and other devices, but that is such broad language, can I take that to a Gatling gun? …So now you start stretching this [new] definition, and who is going to decide what the [standard] rate of fire is?” In other words, Vasquez is saying a this new ban simply opens the door to “stretching” the language to cover other devices, as the ruling class sees fit.

Gun Owners of America has been warning against a bump stock gun control, be that legislative or regulative control, from the start. The NRA took the position of opposing legislation action but asking the ATF to consider a regulative move.

The regulative move is in its final stages and at least one gun control activists involved in the student march is making clear the intention to use a bump stock ban as a segue into numerous other gun controls.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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