Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era ban on bump stocks for firearms

Washington – The Supreme Court on Friday invalidated a federal rule enacted during the Trump administration that banned bump stocks, devices that greatly increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic weapons.

O Decision 6-3 found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority when it issued the ban in 2018 following the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival, the deadliest in US history. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the court’s opinion, which split along ideological lines. Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissenting opinion in court

“This case questions whether a bump stock – an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to quickly reactivate the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire) – converts the rifle into a ‘machine gun.’ We don’t think so,” Thomas wrote to the conservative majority.

The court’s decision overturns one of the few actions the federal government has taken in recent years to combat gun violence, as Republicans in Congress have opposed sweeping restrictions on firearms. The case did not involve the Second Amendment, but it was one of several before the justices this term involving federal regulatory power.

Bump stocks are accessories that increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic rifles to hundreds of rounds per minute. The case, known as Garland v. Cargill, focused on whether the ATF went too far when banned devices in 2018 after determining that the definition of “machine gun” in a 1934 law covered bump stocks. Machine guns allow the firing of multiple shots with the single pull of a trigger and are prohibited by federal law.

The ATF determined on multiple occasions between 2008 and 2017 that rising inventories did not qualify as machine guns and were not regulated by relevant law. But the agency changed its position after the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Musical Festival, where a gunman killed 58 people and injured 500 others and after which Congress took no action to regulate the devices.

The shooter used semiautomatic weapons equipped with buttstocks, allowing him to fire up to 1,000 rounds of ammunition in 11 minutes, according to the FBI.

The stock ban

Issued in December 2018, the new rule declared That a rifle equipped with a stock qualifies as a machine gun in part because when a shooter pulls the trigger, it begins a firing sequence that produces more than one shot. This firing sequence is “automatic” because “the device harnesses the firearm’s recoil energy as part of a continuous back-and-forth cycle that allows the shooter to achieve continuous fire after a single trigger pull.”

Stocks replace the standard stock of a semi-automatic rifle and allow the rest of the weapon to move back and forth while the stock remains in place. When the gun is fired and the shooter applies forward pressure on the barrel, the rifle recoils into the stock and springs forward again, “slamming” the trigger onto the shooter’s finger and firing another shot.

The Trump administration’s rule took effect in March 2019. Those who already owned bump stocks were required to destroy or turn over the devices to the ATF or face criminal sanctions.

During the agency’s rulemaking process, Michael Cargill purchased two bump stocks. After the ban was enacted, he turned the devices over to the ATF and filed a lawsuit against the government in Texas federal court.

A U.S. district court and a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in favor of the ATF, but the full list of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit invalidated the bump stock ban.

The Cargill case was not the only challenge to the regulation. Another bump stock owner prevailed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, but a three-judge panel of the appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld the ban after ruling that a bump stock is a machine gun under federal law. .

The Biden administration supported the bump stock ban and urged the Supreme Court to keep the policy in place. Rifles equipped with these devices are “dangerous and unusual weapons,” Justice Department lawyers argued, saying the stocks allow a ban on machine guns implemented in 1986 to be circumvented.