I hate slippery slope arguments, but this is a slippery slope. A machine gun is easily defined: one trigger pull results in multiple bullets being fired. Defining it any other way would not only be an abuse of power — the executive cannot rewrite a statute — but it would put an entire class of legally owned firearms in the crosshairs. For years, gun control advocates have tried to conflate semi-automatic and automatic firearms. They have tried desperately to convince an uninterested public that AR-15s are just as dangerous and even the same thing as automatic firearms.

This proposed regulation would complete that process. It buys into the gun control talking point that AR-15s are weapons of war. If this is enacted, semi-automatic rifles will be on the chopping block. Not today, not next year, but eventually. How can Americans be trusted with owning something that is just one pulled stock pin away from becoming a machine gun?