Remember Tuesday, after Donald Trump spent nearly a week without offering a single solution to preventing the next Parkland massacre and then suddenly decided he would direct the Department of Justice to ban bump stocks? That wasn't by accident.
If such regulation is even legal, the responsibility would fall to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which is part of the DOJ. Trump has been parroting NRA talking points all week, and charging the ATF with such responsibilities is no different—the NRA pretty much has a stranglehold on the agency. As the New York Times writes:
Now, the A.T.F. is on the verge of a crisis. The agency, which has not grown significantly since its founding in 1973, is about to confront a staffing shortage and is set to lose its tobacco and alcohol enforcement authorities. President Trump has yet to nominate a director to oversee the agency, which has been without permanent leadership for eight of the past 12 years. [...]
It is all but politically impossible for Mr. Trump, who counts the powerful gun lobby among his most ardent supporters, to strengthen the A.T.F. The National Rifle Association has long sought to hobble the agency in an effort to curb its ability to regulate guns, which the gun lobby has traditionally opposed.
For decades, the N.R.A. has used its sway in Washington to preserve the A.T.F. in its limited capacity. It has aggressively lobbied against nominated directors and pushed Congress to enact restrictions on how the bureau spends money to curtail its ability to regulate firearms and track gun crimes. One funding provision, for example, forbids the A.T.F. from using electronic databases to trace guns to owners. Instead, the agency relies on a warehouse full of paper records.
So if you were wondering where Trump's first bid to curb criticism over his failed response to the Parkland tragedy came from—it came straight from the NRA. In fact, following the Las Vegas massacre last October, it was the NRA itself that called on the ATF to regulate bump stocks rather than calling for legislation. And the NRA doesn’t suggest anything that doesn’t play straight into their own hands.