A Bump (Stock) in the Road for SCOTUS? Court Considers Gun Regulation Statute

The U.S. Supreme Court has just heard oral arguments on the long-awaited issue of regulating bump stocks in firearms.

A "bump stock" is not when your investments increase in value. It’s an accessory attached to a firearm to increase its rate of fire, making it easier for somebody to fire a weapon faster. It works by harnessing the recoil energy of the rifle. When a semi-automatic rifle is fired, it naturally recoils or "bumps" backward. A bump stock replaces the rifle's standard stock (the part that rests against the shoulder) and allows the rifle to slide back and forth freely with the recoil.

With a bump stock, the shooter's trigger finger can remain stationary, resting against the trigger, while continuing to fire more rounds because the trigger is "bumped" against the finger as the rifle slides forward again due to the shooter's forward pressure. This process repeats rapidly, mimicking the high rate of fire of a fully automatic weapon because the action of the rifle moving back and forth causes the trigger to be actuated repeatedly.

Massacres Spark Gun Reform

Bump stocks were relatively unknown until recent years. The devices notably rose to infamy during the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, when a gunman used rifles equipped with bump stocks to fire rapidly on a crowd at a music festival, killing 58 people and leaving over 500 others injured.

In the aftermath, there was a significant public outcry and calls for tighter gun control measures, including the regulation or banning of bump stocks. In the subsequent years, Nevada addressed its gun control laws, which used to be some of the most lax in the country. Some other states joined in tightening their own laws, but unfortunately, not all of them acted in time.

Florida’s Parkland High School shooting made media waves in 2018, with 17 deaths and just as many nonfatal injuries. Still, this did have the affect of finally pushing Florida legislators to tighten their own laws. These laws did not go as far as many were pushing for, such as implementing a ban on assault weapons. But taking a lesson from its own massacre if not from Nevada’s, Florida, too, banned bump stocks.

But all these laws were happening at the state level. This meant that states could still allow bump stocks if they chose to do so.

Uncle Sam Steps In

Initially, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) determined that bump stocks did not qualify as machine guns and thus were not regulated under existing federal law.

However, in December 2018, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order seeking to classify bump stocks as automatic weapons under federal law. The ATF accordingly revised its interpretation, and the Department of Justice issued a final rule that classified bump stocks as machine guns under the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act. The rule required individuals in possession of bump stocks to either destroy them or turn them into an ATF office.

Well, that solves that, right? Hardly. The bump stock ban faced several legal challenges from gun rights advocacy groups and individual gun owners, claiming that the ATF's reclassification of bump stocks was an overreach of its authority and that the ban infringed upon Second Amendment rights. Various lawsuits were filed, and some injunctions were sought to prevent the ban from being enforced.

Feds Sued for Bump Stock Ban

Shortly after the new rule was issued, Michael Cargill, a gun rights advocate and owner of a gun store in Texas, was made to surrender two bump stocks to the ATF. When he, along with other plaintiffs, sued the agency under the Administrative Procedure Act and various constitutional provisions, the trial court dismissed his claims, and he appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

At first, the appellate could agreed with the district court that bump stocks qualify as machine guns under the best interpretation of the statute, and affirmed. But the appellate court reheard the case en banc (with all 13 judges sitting), and at that time, it reversed and remanded the lower court decision. The judges in the majority offered different rationales for rejecting the ATF’s interpretation of the law. Eight judges determined that the term “single function of the trigger” in the federal statute meant a single mechanical “action” of the trigger, and that a rifle equipped with a bump stock fires only one shot each time the trigger “acts.” These judges also concluded that a bump stock does not allow a shooter to fire more than one shot “automatically” because, to continue firing after the shooter pulls the trigger, the shooter must maintain manual, forward pressure from their body on the barrel and manual, backward pressure with the trigger finger. Twelve judges agreed that at a minimum, those terms in the statute are “grievously ambiguous.” The “rule of lenity” says that judges should resolve ambiguities within a law in favor of the criminal defendant, so they resolved the issue in Cargill’s favor.

A Head-Scratcher for SCOTUS?

That case has since been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, who heard oral arguments on Wednesday. The court seemed divided. Justices spent a while asking detailed follow-up questions about the precise mechanical and practical differences in firing a machine gun versus firing a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock.

Justices Amy Coney Barret and Neil Gorsuch said that they were sympathetic to the government’s position and open to the illegalization of bump stocks, but wanted to leave those decisions up to legislators rather than the judiciary. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, by contrast, argued that bump stocks are included in the kind of weapons that Congress intended to prohibit when passing the statute in question.

From the Justices’ questioning, they did not seem to be sticking closely to their typical party lines, so how the Supreme Court will resolve this case is not clear. A decision on the case is expected sometime this spring.

Related Resources:

• Pennsylvania Gun Law for Young Adults Ruled Unconstitutional (FindLaw's Federal Courts)
• Gun Control Laws (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
• Supreme Court Considers Challenge to Law Prohibiting Guns for People Under Restraining Orders (FindLaw's Federal Courts)