Clarence Thomas' Opinion Legalizing Bump Stocks Is Indefensible

[dpibel]

12. This guy has it wrong?

In 1986 federal legislation, called the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA), prohibited the possession of “new” machine guns by citizens. This meant that only machine guns made prior to this date in 1986 were lawful to be possessed by citizens (this is still true). Of course, this prohibition did not apply to FFLs (certain gun dealers / manufacturers) nor law enforcement.

So there is, in fact, a prohibition of ownership of machine guns made after 1986 without special licensing (that is, you can't walk in off the street and buy a machine gun, but you can do that with a semiautomatic).

If an AR-15 with a bump stock is a machine gun, then allowing the civilian purchase of them carves a big hole in that prohibition, now don't it?

According to another article I found on a quick google, machine guns are legal in 37 states. Most of us would not characterize that as "nearly every state."

If you're willing to stretch the truth twice in such a short post, why should I take you seriously?