Gun owners, like libertarians, a very good at eating their own. Nowhere is this more prevalent than the conversations that have been surrounding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’s (ATF) ruling that holding a gun wrong is a felony. You would think gun owners would be focusing in their wrath on the ATF but many seem to view fellow gun owners are the true culprits.
When the arm braces were released we all knew they were going to get an unfavorable ruling from the ATF eventually. Many gun owners wrote into the ATF requesting clarification on numerous corner cases involving arm braces. Some of the requests were serious but most of them were humorous. Apparently these requests are what caused the ATF to issue its ruling and we should therefore all scorn the gun owners who made those requests.
This is bullshit. Pure unadulterated bullshit. We all knew the ATF was going to issue this ruling eventually. After all, if there’s one thing the ATF hates more than gun owners it’s fun. I’m fairly certain the ATF has a staff that just combs YouTube for videos of people having fun with firearms and tries to figure out how to make those activities illegal. As soon as videos started popping up of gun owners having fun with arm braces it was over. The ATF detected fun and it was going to swoop in to stop it.
All of you who are blaming fellow gun owners for the ATF’s actions need to knock it the fuck off. I get it. You’re angry and you feel powerless against the ATF. But taking out your rage on somebody you perceive to be weaker is childish. It’s as if your teacher gave you detention so you decided to beat the shit out of her kid.
Some of you may not be angry but are merely trying to win favor from the ATF. Turning on your fellows is a great to display loyalty to a master after all. But it’s not going to work. No matter how much you kowtow to the ATF, no matter how much you lick its boots, it will not grant you the special favors you seek. When the next fun toy gets developed it will still rip it from your hands. That’s because it views you, correctly, as its subject.
The ATF issued and will enforce the decision. It is solely responsible for this mess. So take all of that anger that you’re using to lash out at people who aren’t responsible for this mess and lash out at the ATF. Who knows, maybe if our ancestors had told the ATF to go fuck itself instead of screaming at each other we wouldn’t be in the mess. Maybe if the ATF knew everything it did would be met with resistance it would be more hesitant to issue stupid rulings. But we’ll probably never know because we’re too busy blaming each other to dedicate any real energy to hating the actual culprit.