Every night before he hits the sack, somewhere in the suburbs of Washington, WSB Radio's Jamie Dupree taps out summaries of the day's blog posts. He's very good at pointing out the dogs that don't bark, which are often more important than the noisy ones. Last night's example:
Honestly, if a Democratic administration ordered hundreds of thousands of Americans to turn in their bump stocks or destroy them in the next three months, I think the dome might have blown off the U.S. Capitol.
But yesterday, there was a muted GOP reaction as the Trump administration ordered exactly that.
Dupree was right. This morning’s inbox shows nary a response – in support or opposition – from GOP members of Georgia’s congressional delegation. No barking whatsoever. Some basic details from the Associated Press:
Bump stocks became a focal point of the gun control debate after they were used in October 2017 when a man opened fire from his Las Vegas hotel suite into a crowd at a country music concert, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.
The regulation was signed Tuesday by Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. It will take effect 90 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen Friday.
Bump stock owners will be required to either destroy them or surrender them to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a senior Justice Department official said. It is impossible to know just how many bump stocks Americans own because the devices aren't traceable, but ATF has estimated that between 280,000 and about 520,000 have been sold since 2010.
Former Georgia congressman Bob Barr, who is a former member of the NRA governing board, is one of the few public critics of the action. His is a process argument. From a column written earlier this month, in anticipation of the Trump administration action:
ATF (and the Department of Justice, in which ATF is a component) decided to accomplish the goal of outlawing bump stocks not by defining them as a new device to be restricted (which would be subject to challenge as usurping Congress' power), but by simply "clarifying" the definition of a "machine gun" in existing law to include a "bump stock."
Thus, by regulatory sleight-of-hand, a bump stock becomes not an accessory to a machine gun but an actual "machine gun."
Think about it: A piece of composite plastic, with no moving parts and incapable by itself of firing any projectile, is now, pursuant to ATF's machinations, a machine gun; and notwithstanding that just a few years ago, that same ATF expressly had deemed such devices lawful.
One gun rights group, Gun Owners of America, is already threatening court action. But the NRA announced that it was merely “disappointed” that the new policy didn’t provide amnesty for gun owners who already own bump stocks.
Before you get riled up, understand that, aside from grandfathering in current bump stock owners, the Trump administration is doing precisely what the NRA called for in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting. From its 2017 statement:
Despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law.
The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.
What the NRA didn’t want – and this was months before the Parkland, Fla., massacre of high school students – was a debate over automatic weaponry in Congress that would linger through the mid-term elections, highlighting suburban disaffection with the organization’s often absolutist defense of the Second Amendment.
This morning’s Republican silence is evidence that the NRA ‘s concern was well-founded. Then again, you can say the same thing about Democrat Lucy McBath’s Nov. 6 victory in Georgia’s Sixth District congressional contest.
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The recount is over and the results still stand: Republican state Rep. Dan Gasaway, R-Homer, was defeated by GOP challenger Chris Erwin by two votes after a rare re-do vote. Gasaway's camp had asked for the recount Monday. The race was a do-over from May, caused by the wrongful assignment of voting precincts in the north Georgia House District.
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In this morning's Marietta Daily Journal, state Rep. Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, has this explanation for current talk about the creation of a city of East Cobb:
"I think part of what's motivating it is part of the way the county has become Democratic," Anulewicz said. "… Because if you have folks that might be interested in elected office, but they're probably not going to win countywide because of their political affiliations, then you set up a whole new government."
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Here's something you don't see every day: Congress passing a substantive piece of legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support — on a controversial topic, no less.
The u.s. Senate last night cleared the first major criminal justice overhaul in a generation, 87 to 12. Both Johnny Isakson and David Perdue voted in support of the legislation.
The First Step Act would mirror some of the changes Gov. Nathan Deal spearheaded on the state level in recent years. It would give federal judges more discretion for sentencing low-level offenders and incentivize inmates to participate in rehabilitative programming to earn reduced sentences and help them transition back into society, among other changes.
Isakson cited Deal’s work as he voted for the bill:
“In Georgia, we’ve already seen positive results from our criminal justice reform efforts led by Governor Nathan Deal, and I’m glad to see this push at the federal level, because we know it can work,” Isakson said.
Perdue, who opposed a broader criminal justice measure in 2016, was a harder sell, but he and Texas Republican Ted Cruz eventually negotiated changes to the bill that would slightly limit its scope.
The bill now heads to the House, where nearly all of Georgia's 14 lawmakers are expected to back its passage. Gainesville Republican Doug Collins was one of the bill's lead authors and has been working the phones around the clock in recent weeks.
A key vote to watch will be John Lewis. The civil rights leader was an opponent to an earlier, narrower version of the bill penned by Collins. (Lewis said it wasn’t far reaching enough and could make racial and socio-economic sentencing disparities worse.)
The Atlanta Democrat hasn’t said how he’ll vote on the broader Senate bill, but he told one of your Insiders last week that he “hope(d) and pray(ed)” he could vote for it.
“I’d like to see doing something more than just warehousing people,” he said of the current criminal justice system.
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U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson paid tribute Tuesday to the exiting Gov. Nathan Deal, first lady Sandra and Chris Riley, the governor's longtime top aide. The Republican lauded the team for their work on criminal justice, business development and the HOPE scholarship. "I know I'm supposed to just brag about Nathan," Isakson said. " I want to brag about all three of them because those three as a combination make a great team."
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