Supreme Court strikes down ban on bump stock gun accessories

The Supreme Court rejected a Trump-era rule that banned so-called “bump stocks” that allow rifles to mimic automatic fire, ruling that the government had exceeded its authority by relying on a federal law applicable to machine guns.

In a closely divided 6-3 decision, the conservative justices ruled by a majority that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could not ban the device that attaches to the back of a firearm and allows him to imitate automatic weapons.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote separately to emphasize that it is up to Congress to ban bump stocks such as the one used in the “horrific shooting” in Las Vegas that killed more than 50 people during a music festival in 2017.

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

The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said adding the stock to the rear of the weapon did not change the specifics of the internal trigger mechanism, which was the focus of the law originally written in 1934 when it banned machine guns.

“We conclude that a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a 'machine gun' because it does not fire more than one shot 'by any single function of the trigger,'” Thomas wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that the ruling “will have deadly consequences.”

Sotomayor, who read part of his dissent from the bench, criticized the majority for setting aside Congress's intent in the federal law that bans weapons that fire “automatically more than one round, without manual reloading, by a single trigger function.

“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,” Sotomayor wrote. “Because I, like Congress, call it a machine gun, I respectfully disagree.”

Sotomayor wrote that the decision would put “relief stocks in the hands of civilians” and invite gunmakers to create new devices that mimic automatic rifles.

“The artificially narrow definition of the majority cripples government efforts to keep machine guns out of the reach of men like the Las Vegas shooter,” Sotomayor wrote.

A bump stock is a complement to a firearm that uses recoil to “bump” the weapon into the shooter's trigger, firing faster than usual. Congressional leaders have refused to act on bipartisan legislation introduced after the Las Vegas shooting.

President Donald Trump ordered the government to ban bump stocks in 2018, as students pressured state and federal lawmakers to pass regulations after 17 people were killed by a gunman at a school in Parkland, Florida.

The ATF issued a rule restricting these devices by defining them as machine guns, which are restricted under a longstanding federal law.

The case came to court after Michael Cargill returned several of the devices and challenged the rule in federal court in Texas. Cargill said the ATF correctly interpreted federal law for years when it approved the devices before 2017.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit struck down the rule allowing it to go beyond the statute's definition of “machine gun,” writing that the definition relied on a single operation of the trigger mechanism.

The Biden administration then asked the justices to intervene, arguing that the law was supposed to depend on what a shooter does rather than the specifics of a trigger mechanism. Taking a narrower approach, the administration said, would incentivize creative methods to replicate the machine guns.

Thomas largely endorsed the 5th Circuit's approach in Friday's opinion, replete with illustrations of the function of a rifle's trigger mechanism.

Calls for legislation

President Joe Biden, in a statement Friday describing the ban on bump stocks as “an important gun safety regulation,” did not indicate he would try to use executive powers to ban them . Instead, Biden said Congress should “ban the stockpiles, pass an assault weapons ban, and take additional action to save lives — send me a bill and I'll sign it immediately.”

In 2022, House Democrats passed a bill that included, among other measures, a ban on bump stocks, in response to several mass shootings. However, the ban was not included in a broader compromise bill on gun violence that Congress passed later that year.

Democrats sharply criticized the Supreme Court's decision and called on Congress to pass legislation regarding wholesale stocks. In a statement, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Democrat of Nevada, said the devices “have no place on our streets.”

Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who represents part of Las Vegas, said in a statement Friday that she was “dismayed” by the court's decision and called on Congress to pass legislation she sponsored and which would codify a ban on wholesale stocks.

“This decision impacts many communities that have been impacted by gun violence caused by rapid-fire gun accessories, including District One,” Titus said, referring to his congressional district.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., criticized the decision in a statement and said he would work with any Republicans willing to negotiate new gun control laws to fire.

The gun legislation is expected to navigate a Republican-controlled House and closely divided Senate where confidence in the Biden administration is low amid election-year politics.

John T. Bennett contributed to this report.