Should have clarified an essential point of ‘bump stocks’ law

I am a longtime Southern Maryland resident, a lawful firearms owner, former president of a local community-based sportsman’s club, and the current vice president of the nonpartisan, grassroots, civil-rights activist group Maryland Shall Issue (MarylandShallIssue.org). As such, I was quite dismayed at the incompleteness of the article titled “Del. urges filing with ATF for bump stocks.”

Maryland Shall Issue is a party to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Maryland law making bump stocks illegal. However, the basis for our lawsuit is that this law is a clear violation of the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment — “private property shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Since this law makes formerly legal property into criminal possession yet fails to provide any compensation for the owners, this law is obviously and clearly unconstitutional, as the courts will certainly rule in due time. MSI had encouraged the legislature to include a lawful payment clause within this bill during the last session, but we were rebuffed by the bill’s sponsors, with the sponsors erroneously claiming that the takings clause only applies to real estate. I wish the article had clarified this essential point.

But worse was the unintentional mischaracterization of MSI’s recommendation that lawful firearms owners should consider complying with the specific and literal provisions of the law for applying to the ATF for approval of any firearms modifications and “devices” that might increase the rate of fire. In a recent hearing for our lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge James K. Bredar made it clear that he believes all that was needed to comply with the law was for the existing owner to send a letter applying for authorization to possess the “devices” covered by Senate Bill 707 to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by Oct. 1. That is exactly in compliance with the “grandfather” clause contained within the law.

Sending in such a letter does not mean that you are identifying yourself as owning a bump stock or any specific device. It just means that you are a righteous and lawful citizen who (like everyone else, including Judge Bredar and the Maryland General Assembly) doesn’t know whether the law applies to you and that you wish to protect yourself from overzealous arrest and prosecution.

We realize that the ATF will not actually entertain such “applications” because it has publicly announced that it would not consider them (the General Assembly knew this as well, but still wrote this silly clause into the law). But that does not and will not matter until the law’s deadline of Oct. 1, 2019. It is our hope that our lawsuit will clarify this law by that time. In the meantime, all our citizens must do in order to protect themselves is to apply to the ATF according to the law and Judge Bredar’s ruling.

For the article to mischaracterize the efforts of MSI and Del. Deb Rey (R-St. Mary’s) to inform our fellow citizens of this legal risk is a disservice to our community. Please publish this letter to communicate these concerns to our fellow citizens. John Mountjoy, Hollywood