The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday The court ruled that bump stocks do not transform a firearm into an automatic weapon, invalidating federal regulations banning bump stocks.
“Congress has long restricted access to machine guns,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 6-3 ruling.[s]A category of firearms that has the ability to “automatically fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger.”
“A semi-automatic rifle, which requires the shooter to pull the trigger every time, is not a machine gun. This case asks whether a bump stock, an attachment to a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to pull the trigger more quickly (and thus achieve a higher rate of fire), turns the rifle into a ‘machine gun.’ We hold that it does not,” he wrote.
Garland v. Cargill asked the Court whether bump stock devices were “machine guns” as defined by federal law because they were designed and intended to be used to turn a rifle into a weapon “which would automatically fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger.”
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Bump stocks on display in Harrisonburg, Virginia on March 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
The high court majority ruled that the statutory definition of a “machine gun” is a weapon “capable of automatically firing multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger.”
“We believe that a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machine gun’ because it cannot fire more than one round ‘with a single pull of the trigger’ and even if it could, it would not fire ‘automatically,'” Thomas wrote.
“Thus, ATF exceeded its statutory authority by promulgating regulations classifying bump stocks as machine guns,” he said.
Demonstrators carried signs that read “Fists, not stocks” and marched from the White House to the U.S. Capitol. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 60 people and injured more than 500, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued an interpretive rule concluding that “bump stocks” are machine guns.
“This tragedy created enormous political pressure to ban bump stocks nationwide, and within days, members of Congress introduced bills to ban bump stocks and other devices ‘designed to increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic rifles,'” Justice Thomas wrote in his opinion Thursday.
The Trump administration began banning the devices, reversing earlier regulations, and President Biden’s Justice Department has defended it in court.
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Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented for the majority, saying, “The Court has put bump stocks back into civilian hands. In doing so, the Court has ignored Congress’ definition of ‘machine gun’ and adopted a definition that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose.”
“If I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock automatically fires multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger, without the need for manual reloading. I call it a machine gun, as does Congress, and I respectfully disagree,” Sotomayor wrote.
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Sprinklers water the lawn in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on the morning of Monday, April 29, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
A bump stock is an attachment that replaces the standard stock (the long part of the weapon that rests on your shoulder) on a semi-automatic rifle.
Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works, filed a lawsuit against the government after ATF regulations forced him to return several “bump stocks,” arguing that the ATF was overstepping its executive authority by imposing the ban in the absence of congressional action.
“More than five years ago, I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, even if I was the only plaintiff in this lawsuit, and that’s exactly what I’ve done,” Cargill, an Army veteran, said Friday.
Mark Chenoweth, president of the New Civil Liberties Union and an attorney for Cargill, praised Friday’s ruling as a vindication of his clients’ position that the ATF does not have the authority to rewrite criminal law.
“No law passed by Congress bans bump stocks, and the ATF does not have the authority to ban them on its own. This result is fully consistent with the Constitution’s provision that vests all legislative power in Congress. Threats from bump stock opponents should be directed at Congress, not the courts, which have faithfully applied the law before them,” Chenoweth said.
“The decision the Supreme Court vacated today illegally confiscated more than 500,000 legally purchased bump stocks from the American public. This should never have been authorized, and the officials responsible for this misconduct should hang their heads in shame,” he said.
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Vince Warner fired an AK-47 equipped with a bump stock at Good Guys Gun and Range in Orem, Utah on February 21, 2018. (George Frey/Getty Images)
Bump stocks came into circulation early this century as one of many devices that can be attached to semi-automatic rifles.
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As the shooter pushes the barrel forward, the device uses recoil energy to “slam” the trigger onto a stationary finger, allowing the next bullet to be fired, resulting in faster firing than with a standard stock.
According to the ATF, more than 500,000 bump stocks were in circulation when federal law went into effect five years ago requiring them to be surrendered or destroyed.
