No, it is definitely a bug. It prevents implementing parsers that pass strings on to another sub-parser or command. Imagine, for example, implementing a script that takes some arguments, but takes the entire rest of the command string and passes it to some unix program that it calls...and that unix program will recognize '--' in that string as the end of processing *its* options, and the user of the python command may well want to do that. Unless this bug is fixed, it would be impossible to use argparse to implement such a reasonable scenario.