Congress, Do Your Job

We usually don’t buy all the noise about NRA bullying of Congress, but this time there’s a there there. The issue is banning bump stocks in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre. The change has massive support, with even the National Rifle Association saying it’s kosher.

But the lobby doesn’t want Congress voting to change the law, and GOP leaders are listening. Instead, they say, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives should ban the rapid-fire-assist devices. That’s right: The gun-rights crew wants

bureaucrats to enact the limit. Back in 2010, the ATF ruled that a bump stock “is a firearm part and [as such] is not regulated as a firearm under the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act.” If the

Obama crowd said it lacked the power to regulate anything to do with guns, you can trust that’s the clear state of the law.

But nothing stops Congress from changing the law. It’s plainly constitutional under the broadest possible reading of the Second Amendment. This is rank inside-Washington thinking: The lobby doesn’t want politicians voting to do anything that smacks of gun control, for fear it’ll become a habit.

Yet the policy is plain: Attached to a semiautomatic rifle, a bump stock enables fire almost as rapid as with an illegal automatic.

And the NRA bans them from the firing range at its Virginia HQ for safety reasons.

The gimmicks helped the Vegas shooter kill 58 and wound 500 more; demand for them has shot up since. It’s on Congress to block would-be copycats.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act would “ban the sale, transfer, importation, manufacture or possession of bump stocks, trigger cranks and similar accessories that accelerate a semiautomatic rifle’s rate of fire.” That sounds exactly right.

Are Republicans in Congress afraid to vote anything into law? Time to quit being cowards, folks — and do your jobs.