Breaking: Supreme Court Strikes Down Bump Stock Ban

Update on 6/14/2024 at 5:30 p.m. MT:

ATF Director Steven Dettlebach director released the following statement regarding the Supreme Court striking down the bump stock ban:

“As the 2017 massacre of nearly 60 people at a concert in Las Vegas made clear, weapons equipped with bump stocks pose an unacceptable level of risk to public safety. In light of today’s decision, the President has called on Congress to take action on bump stocks, and ATF stands ready to work with Congress to ensure that these devices no longer pose a threat to American law enforcement and they people they protect.”

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Original Story Below

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the bump stock ban in a 6 to 3 decision and said the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agency had “exceeded its statutory authority.”

The bump stock ban was put in place during former President Donald Trump’s administration after the deadly Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead. The ATF determined that bump stocks turned semi-automatic weapons into machine guns.

Congress did not change the definition of whether a bump stock was a machine gun and did not pass a ban on it, despite several attempts to do so, but the ATF made a rule change that classified them as machine guns.

For years, the ATF had determined that bump stocks did not convert weapons to automatic weapons. That changed shortly after the Las Vegas shooting.

Gun groups argued that the bump stock did not change the weapon to an automatic weapon because the function of the trigger still required one pull of the trigger for each round that had to be fired. That was the argument Michael Cargill used in filing his case, which ultimately reached the Supreme Court.

Those opposed to bump stocks said the rate of fire using a bump stock was similar to a machine gun and should be regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934.

In issuing the opinion for the majority in the case, Justice Clarence Thomas said,

“A bump stock does not convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does.”

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Thomas went on to say this about the ATF’s previous stance on the bump stock:

“For many years, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) took the position that semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks were not machineguns under the statute.

On more than 10 separate occasions over several administrations, ATF consistently concluded that rifles equipped with bump stocks cannot “automatically” fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.”

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent for the Court.

Sotomayor said in her dissent, in part,

“Today, the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands. To do so, it casts aside Congress’s definition of “machinegun” and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose.

When 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 bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires “automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” §5845(b). Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun, I respectfully dissent.”

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Gun groups celebrated the opinion from the Court as a victory for gun owners.

One group, Gun Owners of America, posted the following on X:

“HUGE WIN: This critical ruling protects your AR-15 from a tyrannical ATF ban.

If bump stocks were machine guns then all semiautomatic firearms could also have been banned as illegal machine guns.

SCOTUS has now closed that door. (American Flag emoji)”

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The National Rifle Association had previously said that devices that operate like machine guns should have additional regulations. They made the statement shortly after the Las Vegas shooting.

But the organization celebrated today’s decision. On the NRA’s X account, they said,

“NRA STATEMENT ON GARLAND v. CARGILL: ‘The Supreme Court has properly restrained executive branch agencies to their role of enforcing, and not making, the law. This decision will be pivotal to NRA’s future challenges of ATF regulations.’ – Randy Kozuch, NRA-ILA Exec. Dir.”

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While gun groups celebrated the decision from the Supreme Court, gun control groups disagreed and called for Congressional action.

Giffords posted the following on X:

“BREAKING: SCOTUS ruled 6 to 3 to strike down the ban on bump stocks.

Bump stocks turn semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. The court’s decision is reckless and dangerous.

Congress must take immediate action to keep these automatic weapons out of our communities.”

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Moms Demand Action posted the following statement:

“JUST IN: Today, the Supreme Court affirmed an extreme and deadly decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that struck down a rule issued by ATF to prohibit the production, sale, and possession of bump stocks, devices that are designed and intended to convert semi-automatic firearms into machine guns. http://etwn.us/3Vm18zL“

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The opinion from the Supreme Court could impact other cases currently making their way through the legal system.

One potential case concerns the pistol brace, which the ATF also administratively banned. The 5th Circuit District Court threw out the ATF’s pistol brace rule yesterday.

It is unclear if the government intends to appeal the 5th Circuit’s decision and whether today’s reversal of the bump stock ban will impact their decision.

What do you think of today’s Supreme Court opinion of the bump stock ban?

Let us know in the comments below.

Note: Bump stock image courtesy of Reuters, George Frey.