The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last Friday undid a major regulation of bump stocks — and the White House is upset about it. Let's take a look at the background and the ruling and what legislators on Capitol Hill might do about it.
The Legal Loophole
What’s a machine gun? In federal law, the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) sheds some light. The NFA regulates certain types of firearms considered especially dangerous, including machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, and silencers. It imposes taxes and stricter ownership requirements for these firearms.
The NFA defines “machinegun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” Machine guns are different from “semiautomatic” firearms because the latter can fire only once per engagement of the trigger. Machine guns can be used to fire multiple times or even continuously by engaging the trigger once.
There is a bit of a legal grey area between the two, though, and that’s where bump stocks come in (also referred to as the “bump firing” technique). Bump stocks allow a shooter to fire a semiautomatic firearm at a rate similar to that of some machine guns. A bump stock works by using the firearm’s recoil to help rapidly manipulate the trigger. Although using the gun's recoil to fire faster does not necessarily require any additional equipment, the use of a “bump stock” accessory makes it easier.
Bump stocks, however, have a complicated legal history with the NFA. The NFA's definition of a machine gun centered on firing multiple bullets with a single "function of the trigger." Bump stocks, which utilize recoil to accelerate trigger pulls, weren't explicitly addressed. For a long time, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) maintained that semiautomatics equipped with bump stocks were not machine guns under the NFA.
ATF's New Rule
Things changed after October 2017, when a gunman in Las Vegas using bump stock-rigged semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks fired hundreds of rounds into a crowd. He killed 58 people and wounded over 500 more. The use of the bump stock allowed him to fire hundreds of rounds in a matter of minutes.
In response, ATF proposed a rule (“the Rule”) that would change the text of the NFA to clarify that bump stocks are indeed considered machine guns under the law. This change in law effectively banned bump stocks because the Rule ordered owners of bump stocks either to destroy them or surrender them to ATF to avoid criminal prosecution.
Cargill Sues ATF
Michael Cargill, the namesake of the now-famous SCOTUS case Garland v. Cargill, was one of many made to surrender his bump stocks to ATF – but not without a fight.
Cargill soon brought a lawsuit against ATF, claiming that the agency lacked the statutory authority to issue the Rule under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, he said that because bump stocks are not “machineguns” under the NFA, ATF can’t just say they are by issuing a new rule.
Lower courts disagreed on the matter, and the case eventually made its way up to the highest court in the land.
SCOTUS Undoes Rule
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled in Cargill’s favor, holding that the ATF exceeded its authority by issuing a rule that classifies a bump stock as a “machinegun” for the purposes of the NFA.
ATF responded to Cargill’s arguments by pointing out that machine guns also require continuous manual input from a shooter, since the shooter must both engage the trigger and keep it pressed down to continue shooting. The agency reasoned that there wasn’t any meaningful difference between holding down the trigger of a traditional machinegun and maintaining forward pressure on the front grip of a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock.
But SCOTUS didn’t buy that argument, saying that such logic ignores the fact that Congress defined a machinegun by what happens “automatically,” i.e., “by a single function of the trigger.” The Court pointed out that the use of a bump stock does not alter the basic mechanics of bump firing, since the trigger still must be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot.
It’s worth noting that the case was not a Second Amendment issue, although many reactions have cited the Second Amendment in defense of the ruling. SCOTUS decided the case based on what is considered proper regulatory authority to make rules under the APA.
The decision was a landmark, and it made major waves last Friday.
Congress Called to Action
Hours after the SCOTUS ruling went out, the White House chimed in with their disapproval. The president said, “Today’s decision strikes down an important gun safety regulation. Americans should not have to live in fear of this mass devastation.” Seeing that the courts weren’t going to let the Rule stand, the Biden Administration called on Congress to do something.
The SCOTUS ruling may have struck down a ban on bump stocks from the executive branch, but their ruling still leaves the door open for congressional action. As Justice Alito wrote in his concurrence, “There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law — and probably would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation.”
President Biden called federal legislators to take up Alito’s suggestion with even more official law. He said in a statement: “I call on Congress to ban bump stocks, pass an assault weapons ban, and take additional action to save lives. Send me a bill and I will sign it immediately.”
Related Resources:
- The Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms (FindLaw's U.S. Constitution Pages)
- An Overview of Gun Laws (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
- A Bump (Stock) in the Road for SCOTUS? Court Considers Gun Regulation Statute (FindLaw's Federal Courts)
