Today is the day the U.S. Supreme Court will be considering the case challenging the nearly 5-year-old Justice Department rule banning the sale and possession of bump stocks.
The case Cargill v. Garland revolves around the 2019 decision by the Trump Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to redefine bump stock devices as “machineguns.” As most TTAG readers likely know, bump stocks use the recoil of a semi-automatic rifle to bump the trigger, increasing the rate of fire.
But a bump stock isn’t a machine gun. In fact, it’s not even a firearm at all. The same rate of fire can be produced using something as simple as a belt loop, which also, incidentally, isn’t a machine gun or a firearm.
The defendant in the case contends that the DOJ overstepped its authority by declaring bump stocks to be machine guns. And in fact, the ATF had determined that bump stocks were not machine guns on 10 separate occasions from 2008 to 2017. The 2019 ruling completely ignored that fact.
The case came up from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the court ruled that a bump stock was not a machine gun. However, a similar case in the 6th Circuit, GOA v. Garland, ended with an 8-8 tie, leaving a lower court ruling that upheld the ban to stand. The circuit split finally led to the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case.
Numerous gun-rights groups have filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Supreme Court in the case, as have a number of gun-ban organizations. The National Rifle Association’s brief is direct and to the point.
“The Final Rule is arbitrary and capricious,” the brief states. “Congress defined ‘machinegun’ clearly, and bump stocks clearly do not fit that definition.
“ATF got it wrong…. Bump stocks are not machine guns. In defining machine gun, Congress focused solely on the trigger’s mechanics, not the process by which the shooter pulls the trigger. The statutory benchmark is clear, and ATF missed the mark.”
The Firearms Policy Coalition also filed a brief in the case, and pointed out the unconstitutionality of the Final Rule and the way it was made.
“When ATF first considered the legality of bump stocks over 20 years ago, it correctly concluded that they do not qualify as ‘machineguns,’” the FPC brief argues. “Yet in 2018, in the face of acute political pressure, the agency reversed course and adopted a new definition of the term that encompasses the bump stocks at issue. Petitioners’ defense of that newfound interpretation either ignores the statute Congress enacted or seeks to rewrite it.”
Gun-ban groups, however, see it differently. And they, too, filed briefs with the high court.
“The bump stock rule is simply common sense,” Billy Clark, senior litigation attorney at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said recently during a call with reporters about the case. “Bump stocks turn semi-automatic rifles into fully automatic machine guns. That is their sole purpose. Congress has entrusted ATF with the ability to protect the public from technological advancements like bump stocks, and ATF acted squarely within its authority when it issued the bump stock rule.”
Gun-rights group hope that a win in the case will start the dominos falling and lead to the eventual overturn of several other Final Rules on which the DOJ and ATF overstepped their authority over the past three years.
“Simple common sense” translates to “Don’t think about this too much, because we don’t have a good argument.”
if they did, they’d have made it.
☝️Bingo!
gadsdenn…You disappoint me by not venturing beyond the headlines to discover had POTUS DJT turned everything over to a knee jerk congress where all sorts of stuff including stuff like binary triggers advertised on this site would have been on the congressional chopping block, and congress can override a veto. Any questions can be directed to Alan Gottleib. Any replies can begin with what you would done different than POTUS DJT following Vegas?
you missed …. I’m not Gadsden. I suspect Ranger Rick isn’t, either.
Stroke?
Trump disappointed me there, but I still haven’t understood the bump stock thing. Anyone that’s honest with themselves knows it’s a way around the NFA. Which should be repealed. Anyway, full-auto can be fun if you can afford the ammo and weapon. I was paid to shoot them with free ammo most of my adult life. The allure begins to fade.
Ok, I’ll be honest.
Bump stocks, binary triggers, forced reset triggers, trigger cranks, and super safeties are all designed to get around the NFA, machine gun registry, and the Hughes Amendment portion of FOPA. It’s called innovation, and innovators get around “laws” all the time. Consider the various bullet-button devices to get around various California laws. How about the pistol brace – that absolutely circumvents the NFA as well.
Now, what’s your point again? Sure, the NFA should go – no argument there. Personally I don’t have the kind of cash required to try and get that through the legal minefield. So if us peons have to live with bump stocks, or binary triggers, or pistol braces in the mean time, so be it.
This is about government overreach, plain and simple. Either you’re for that, or against it.
“Personally I don’t have the kind of cash required to try and get that through the legal minefield.”
We were just fine for *decades* until the Hughes amazement. Re-open the registry, and the need for bump-stocks, binary triggers, and all that jazz *disappears* into thin air…
The NFA is discriminatory in that it turns a right into a privilege for those who can afford to pay. Bump stocks and similar innovations seek to make NFA banned rights affordable and available to the less privileged. And that IS “common sense” if the left likes that phrase!
300, you got my point. The NFA should go. So should the 68 GCA. I just said that full auto is fun, but expensive. Unless you’re the MG gunner in a rifle squad there’s really not a lot of use for one. If I’m alone and need to fire and maneuver, I’ll take a rifle.
Gadsden Flag,
There are a few situations where I would absolutely NEED full-auto fire to have any meaningful chance of surviving an attack.
One situation involves multiple human attackers storming me at close range–especially when they are approaching from the same direction. A second situation involves a single large animal or multiple animals attacking at close range.
Outside of those types of situations, I want semi-auto fire for accuracy–especially at distance.
There is one “flavor” where I am on the fence about utility–the famous M4/M16 “three-shot burst mode”. I can see where that might be very helpful at close range, especially on single human and animal attackers.
From my experience with 3 shot burst on an M-4 I would vastly prefer full auto. Just made functions more complicated than they had to be for a faster semi auto. I am sure there are situations where they could be awesome but never ran into or thought up one.
You said you didn’t understand the whole bump stock thing.
So I explained it to you – it’s about government overreach.
So now you retort with “there’s really not a lot of use for one”.
It’s called the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs. Just because you don’t have a need (or desire) for one doesn’t mean that the rest of us have the same need or desire.
So your choices are (as I see them):
1. Let those who wish to have a bump stock, binary triggers, pistol braces, etc have them – without interjecting your opinion as to their worthiness.
2. Start a lawsuit attempting to repeal Hughes and/or NFA.
3. Continue to provide your opinion and show that you are ok with these types of infringements because they do not impact you. Typically, this is called a FUDD.
If we get to the point of needing to fire and maneuver, I would hope that none of us are alone……
300BlackoutFan,
I did not get the vibe that you appear to get from Gadsden Flag.
As far as I can tell, Gadsden Flag is more-or-less in the same camp with you.
I listened to the entire oral arguments.
overall, basically: the atf seemed to capture the interest of the left wing justices with their ‘we need to define things our way for our arguments to work’ arguments, and Cargill side stuck to the ‘textualist’ side, and justices were somewhat hung up on ‘trigger pull’ vs ‘function’….
but anyway it might be a close decision.
The anti-gun crowd is being disingenuous or delusional, arguing that bump stocks convert a semi auto into a machine gun. This inaccurate statement was actually spouted off today by ABC news. It is still a SEMI auto, one pull of the trigger, one shot. The news intentionally misrepresents facts on a daily basis, attempting to influence the uninformed. MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS are no longer credible news sources. This should be a crime.
1A freedom of speech
They can talk any shit they want.
Sadly they don’t have to add a disclaimer saying it’s shit
no common sense…do you know the meaning of, “It’s the principal of the matter?” And is select fire a need or is it a right? Last but not least…Is Slavery Rooted in Gun Control or is Gun Control Rooted in Slavery? Please advise.
Are you lost or did comments get scrambled again? Either way you are still having a crisis of relevancy.
I use to wonder why other participants here were critical of your comments Debbie, but now I know why! You are the idiot they say you are!
I advise that the NFA discriminates and gives privilege to the wealthy.
I also advise that select fire is a right otherwise you are in the same boat as anti2A demwits who say “you don’t need an AR-15 because the government has machine guns or ‘F15s’ or whatever “weapons of war.””
There is a lot more of my comments that agree with your position on slavery that apparently you are two confused to understand.
You want to attack everyone because of “slavery!” yet you don’t understand that others’ positions are aligned with your own premise. We just aren’t running around in a rampage like you.
Oh and my “$&@!” should give you some insight into my sarcasm about “common sense” or is that lost on you too?
Do black people have a right to low cost machine guns??? That is the question.
You have seen the videos from Chicago of teen youths and their glock switches, haven’t you? I believe they identify as black, and certainly were low cost.
But are they legal? They certainly should be.
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