High Court Reverses Prohibition on Bump Stocks Enacted Post-Las Vegas Tragedy
The U.S. Supreme Court has rescinded the federal ban on purchasing and selling bump stocks, a firearm attachment that accelerates a semiautomatic rifle's firing rate.
In 2018, shortly after a deranged gunman fired over a thousand bullets at an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from his 32nd-floor Mandalay Bay suite, President Donald Trump ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to reclassify bump stocks under the National Firearms Act (NFA) as prohibited devices.
The NFA was enacted in 1934 and governs firearms, imposing a federal excise tax on their manufacturing and transfer and requiring most weapons to be state-registered. The legislation has undergone numerous amendments, including a 1986 ban on owning machine guns and automatic weapons manufactured after May 19, 1986. Trump urged the ATF to categorize bump stocks as machine guns and ban the add-ons.
However, the Supreme Court made a contentious ruling on Friday stating that neither Trump nor the ATF under his administration had the authority to reclassify bump stocks as machine guns. The 6-3 decision, with conservative justices in the majority, determined that only Congress has the power to reclassify bump stocks as machine guns.
Debatable Ruling
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas provided the majority opinion, stating that a bump stock doesn't fundamentally alter a semiautomatic weapon into an automated machine gun as the shooter must continuously activate the weapon's trigger. The bump stock doesn't modify the primary mechanics of bump firing, and the trigger must still be released and engaged for each subsequent shot. The court concluded that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a 'machine gun' as it can't fire more than one shot "by a single function of the trigger" and doesn't operate "automatically."
A bump stock replaces a semiautomatic rifle's standard stock, the part that the shooter holds against their shoulder. The bump stock allows the weapon to move rapidly back and forth, enabling the shooter to apply continuous pressure to the trigger, resulting in repeated firings due to the gun's recoil.
The conservative justices acknowledged the gravity of their decision in a separate opinion, with Justice Samuel Alito advocating for Congress to draft legislation to update the federal government's definition of machine guns to incorporate bump stocks.
"Now that the situation is clarified, Congress can act," Alito said.
Dissenting Liberal Justice Criticizes Majority
In her minority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor contended that Stephen Paddock, the shooter of the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas massacre, "was not dependent on a quick trigger finger" but on a weapon modified to operate like a machine gun. Sotomayor opined, "When I encounter a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires like a machine gun, automatically firing multiple shots without manual reloading, through a single function of the trigger. As such, I respectfully dissent."
The legal case was initiated by a gun shop owner in Texas who contested the ATF's regulatory modification. The ruling was supported by Thomas, Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett. The dissent was written by Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Jackson.
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto expressed frustration with the Supreme Court's decision.
Bump stocks, like those utilized in the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival massacre in Las Vegas that resulted in 60 fatalities and injuries to hundreds more, do not belong on our streets. I am deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate President Trump’s 2019 regulation.
Cortez Masto was one of the original sponsors of the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts (BUMP) Act. The bill failed to receive backing in the Senate, which was controlled by the GOP at the time.
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have outlawed bump stocks.
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