I warned you. More than three years ago, I warned you.

Today, Chief Justice Roberts denied a motion to stay the bump-fire ban rule pending a final ruling by the courts. If you possess a bump stock, you are now a felon.

When Trump announced his intent to ban bump-fire stocks, Kool-Aid swigging idiots laughed it off. Nah; he’s posturing for the press.

When he sent his memo directing DOJ to begin crafting the rule, it was, Nah, they’ll ‘research’ it and ‘decide’ it isn’t called for.

When the ATF published the ANPRM, morons said, Nah; it’s a trick. They’ll take comments and ‘decide’ it’s unjustified, but Trump still gets to pretend he tried.

When the NPRM came out… rinse, lather, repeat.

When the final rule was published, the sandy-eyed ostriches declared, Don’t worry. Trump is a four-dimensional chess master; he knows the courts will overturn it. He’s gaming the system.

As the ban deadline approached without a favorable ruling from any court, the bird-brains nervously added, Um… the courts will temporarily stay the ban. Right?

When stays were issued on appeal, for the named plaintiffs ONLY, some folks optimisticallythought that was a blanket stay, and sighed in relief. It wasn’t.

When Guedes et al was appealed to the Supreme Court, the Pollyannas were sure they’d issue the stay, or at least remand back to the lower court to do so.

So here we are. I was never terribly hopeful about this because I lost faith in the courts a long time ago.

But… we are screwed.

The lawsuits challenging the ban continue. I’m sure people in denial are sure reality will win out. Look again: the lower courts have stated will every denial of a stay that the plaintiff are unlikley to succeed. That is, they are signalling that the ban will be upheld and they are going through the motions (no pun intended) merely for the sake of appearances.

And today, by refusing a stay, Roberts just said exactly the same thing: “You lose.” We lose bump-fire stocks. And remember my warnings about those semi-autos “easily converted” to machineguns with bump-fire stocks.

And anything and everything else that some bureaucrat decides he doesn’t like. Because all this hinged on a single point: Can unelected bureaucrats redefine common language to create law all by themselves?

Now we know the answer is yes, and the ATF declared hundreds of thousands of people to be felons. And that was a signal to every other bureaucrat in every other federal agency and department: Do whatever you want.

Today, Trabants became M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks, on the whim of a bureaucrat, on the suggestion of a man with no respect for the Constitution and rule of what used to pass for law.

Added: Despite my pessimism, this still a battle worth fighting. Help the FPC help you.

[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]