Supreme Court overturns Trump's gun stockpile ban

Washington- The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a federal rule adopted under the Trump administration that banned bump stocks, devices that significantly increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic weapons.

The 6-3 decision 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 music festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest in US history. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the court's opinion, divided along ideological lines. Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissenting opinion from the bench.

“This case asks whether a bump stock – an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to quickly re-engage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire) – converts the rifle into a “machine gun.” We we believe that this is not the case,” Thomas wrote on behalf of the conservative majority.

The court's decision overturns one of the few steps the federal government has taken in recent years to combat gun violence, as congressional Republicans have opposed comprehensive gun restrictions. The case did not involve the Second Amendment, but was one of several cases brought before the justices this term involving the federal regulatory power.

The opinions

Thomas' majority opinion was very technical and focused on the mechanics and components of a semi-automatic weapon. It included several graphics showing how the guns worked.

The court ultimately concluded that for a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a stock, the trigger must be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot, actions that differentiate it from a machine gun, in which a shooter can fire continuously by engaging the trigger. once. Machine guns are prohibited by federal law.

“A bump stock simply reduces the time that elapses between separate “functions” of the trigger,” Thomas wrote for the majority. “The humped stock makes it easier for the shooter to bring the firearm back to his shoulder and thus release the trigger pressure and reset it. And it helps the shooter press the trigger against his finger very quickly by the rest. A humped stock does not transform a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun any more than a shooter with a high-speed trigger.”

In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor noted that a rifle equipped with a bump stock can fire at a rate of 400 to 800 rounds per minute and wrote that the evidence textual evidence presented shows that a humped stock- The equipped weapon is a machine gun.

“The majority’s reading runs counter to this court’s standard tools of statutory interpretation,” Sotomayor wrote. “By setting aside the plain meaning of the law both at the time of its enactment and today, the majority eviscerates Congress's regulation of machine guns and allows gun users and manufacturers to circumvent federal law. “

She warned the decision would have “deadly consequences” by crippling government efforts to “keep machine guns within the reach of gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”

In response to the decision, President Biden urged Congress to pass legislation banning bump stocks and assault weapons, which he pledged to sign.

“Today’s decision rolls back important gun safety regulations,” Biden said in a statement. “Americans should not have to live in fear of this massive devastation.”

Steven Dettelbach, director of the ATF, said the agency is prepared to work with Congress to ensure that bump stocks “no longer pose a threat to America's law enforcement agencies and the people they protect “.

Mark Chenoweth, president of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which represented the Texas man who challenged the ban, welcomed the ruling and said it reaffirmed his position that the ATF did not have the authority to rewrite the laws.

“The law passed by Congress does not prohibit bump stocks, and the ATF does not have the authority to do so alone,” he said in a statement. “This result is entirely consistent with the Constitution's vesting of all legislative power in Congress. Rank-and-file opponents should direct their opinions to Congress, not the court, which has faithfully applied the law before it .”

The ban on high volume stocks

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, was focused on whether the ATF had gone too far when it bans devices in 2018 after determining that the definition of a “machine gun” in a 1934 law included bump stocks.

ATF had determined several times between 2008 and 2017 that stocks needed to increase. was not considered a machine gun and were not regulated by the relevant law. But the office changed its position after the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, where a gunman killed 58 people and 500 others were injured and after which Congress took no action measures to regulate these devices.

The shooter used semi-automatic weapons equipped with shock stocks, allowing him to fire up to 1,000 rounds in 11 minutes, according to the FBI.

Published in December 2018, the new rule stated that a rifle equipped with a humped stock is considered a machine gun in part because when a shooter pulls the trigger, it initiates a sequence of fire that produces more than one shot. This firing sequence is “automatic” because “the device harnesses the recoil energy of the firearm in a continuous back-and-forth cycle that allows the shooter to get a continuous shot after one pull of the trigger.

Shock stocks replace the standard stock on 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 puts forward pressure on the barrel, the rifle recoils into the stock and bounces forward again, “bumping” the trigger into the shooter's finger and firing another shot .

The Trump administration's rule took effect in March 2019. Those who already had replacement stockpiles had to destroy or turn over the devices to the ATF or face criminal penalties.

During the agency's rulemaking process, Michael Cargill purchased two replacement shares. After the ban, he returned the devices to the ATF and filed a lawsuit against the government in federal court in Texas.

A U.S. district court and a three-judge appeals court panel ruled in favor of the ATF, but the entire 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel struck down the stockpile ban. replacement.

Cargill's case was not the only regulatory challenge. Another bump stock owner prevailed in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but a three-judge appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld the ban after determining that A bump stock is a machine gun under federal law.

The Biden administration has supported banning bump stocks 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, arguing that replacement stocks make it possible to circumvent the ban on machine guns put in place in 1986.

The Supreme Court's majority rejected the dissenters' idea that its decision circumvented the federal ban on machine guns, arguing that the law still regulates traditional machine guns.

“The fact that it does not capture other weapons capable of a high rate of fire clearly does not render the law useless,” Thomas wrote. “Furthermore, it is difficult to understand how the ATF can reasonably assert otherwise, given that its consistent position for nearly a decade in numerous separate decisions was: [the law] does not capture semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump stocks.

The majority also noted that Congress could have tied the definition of “machine gun” to a weapon's rate of fire, but instead passed a federal law that determines whether a firearm can fire more than one round “automatically.” » via a single trigger function.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito also placed the blame on Congress and said the Las Vegas tragedy strengthened the case for changing the 1934 National Firearms Act. which the ATF relied on to ban wholesale stocks.

“There is a simple remedy to the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machine guns,” Alito wrote. “Congress can change the law – and might already have done so if the ATF had stuck to its previous interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.”

But the move drew backlash from gun violence prevention groups, who said it put people in danger.

“Weapons with shock stocks shoot like machine guns, kill like machine guns and should be banned like machine guns – but the Supreme Court just decided to put these deadly devices back on the market,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “We urge Congress to correct this mistake and pass bipartisan legislation banning bulk stocks, which are accessories of war that have no place in our communities.”