This sucks. This is leaning further into the Major Questions Doctrine that SCOTUS has been pushing, where agencies and their actually knowledgeable, employed scientists and technical experts, have no real control over regulatory policies, and instead are beholden to Congress and judges to decide e.g. how many ppm of a chemical is safe for people to drink.

  • Fester@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    They’re not “passing laws.” They define the minute technical details that Congress can’t cover completely or doesn’t understand. Here’s an example:

    Elected Congress: Don’t sell moldy sausage.

    Unelected FDA: Ok, here’s how long you can safely store sausage below this temperature. If that date is passed or the sausage has been exposed to higher temperature for this amount of time, it must be discarded to greatly reduce the possibility of selling moldy sausage.

    Unelected Judge: Mom said if it’s not green it’s not moldy. Just don’t sell green sausage boys.

    Unelected SCOTUS: Yup, that’s how it’s done.

    • Kaboom@reddthat.com
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      4 months ago

      More like they can still make those ruling, but now instead of them being challenged solely on a costitutional basis, they can be challenged on whether or not they follow the law in question.

      Defining moldy is one thing. Declaring shoestrings to be machine guns is another

      • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgOP
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        4 months ago

        Congress is the one who passed the GCA, FOPA, and NFA. If you don’t like the definition of a machine gun being a firearm that fires more than once with a single actuation of the trigger (and the parts that allow them to), blame them, not the ATF.

        • Kaboom@reddthat.com
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          4 months ago

          Making owning shoes a felony is ridiculous, and I honestly cant believe you’re arguing in good faith.

          And a shoe string does not create a firearm that fires more than once with a single actuation of the trigger.

          The ATF went completely off the rails with that one, and it shouldnt have been a challenge of how constitutional it was, it should have been a challenge that it didn’t fit the law.

          • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgOP
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            4 months ago

            They didn’t make owning shoes a felony. Rich of you too accuse ME of arguing in bad faith in the same breath you say that.

            If you use a string to make a reciprocating charging handle pull the trigger as it returns to battery after firing, why is that less “legitimate” in converting the gun into automatic firing than using an auto-sear? In both cases, the gun fires multiple times without human intervention.

              • t3rmit3@beehaw.orgOP
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                4 months ago

                we have determined that the string itself is not a machinegun, whether or not there are loops tied on the ends. However, when the string is added to a semiautomatic firearm as you proposed in order to increase the cycling rate of that rifle, the result is a firearm that fires automatically and consequently would be classified as a machinegun.

                So no, gun owners with shoes are not felons, unless they combine those 2 things to make a machinegun. Obviously.