June 15 :
The US Supreme Court overturned a federal prohibition on bump stocks that was put in place during the Trump administration on June 14, in Washington DC. The high court has recently limited the power of government agencies to independently pass regulations, and this case is the most recent example of that. On behalf of a 6-3 court, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion; Justice Sonia Sotomayor, representing the court's liberal faction, spearheaded the dissenting opinion.
After the devastating mass shooting in 2017 at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas, which killed 58 people, Trump pushed for the restriction. A shooter can transform a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a high rate—possibly hundreds of rounds per minute—by installing a bump stock. "Just like a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does not transform a semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun," Thomas expressed in the opinion. Any semiautomatic weapon, bump stock or no bump stock, will only fire a single shot for each 'function of the trigger.'
A gun store owner from Texas named Michael Cargill took legal action against the ban after he bought two bump stocks in 2018, turned them in to the authorities after the ban was passed, and then sued to get them back. Bump stock possession is now a crime punishable by up to ten years in jail per federal rule.
Although the case did not centre on Second Amendment rights per se, it was one of the most watched legal battles of the year because it rekindled the conversation about guns in the courtroom. The judgement follows a trend of Supreme Court rulings that have favoured groups advocating for gun rights, according to CNN's reporting.
Sotomayor voiced her strong disapproval of the majority's ruling and warned of serious repercussions in her passionate dissent. According to her, "The decision hamstrings the Government's efforts to keep machineguns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter." On Friday, Sotomayor made the unusual decision to give her dissent orally from the bench, highlighting the seriousness of her disagreement and the verdict's unhappiness.
"Whenever I observe a bird that swims, walks, and quacks like a duck, I refer to that bird as a duck," Sotomayor stated in her dissenting opinion. I respectfully disagree since a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock may fire "automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger." Congress and I both term that a machinegun.
The bump stock legal battle has a loose relationship to the 1930s gun control laws passed by Congress, which originally targeted infamous criminals like John Dillinger and Al Capone. Legislators passed a bill requiring the registration of machine guns after they were used in violent crimes.
The transfer or possession of machine guns was made illegal under most circumstances by 1986 as a result of legislative revisions that had been made over the years. The updated statute significantly expanded the definition of a "machine gun" to include any weapon that can discharge multiple rounds with "a single function of the trigger." At issue in the case was how this sentence should be interpreted.
Bump stocks are essentially machine guns due to their operating mechanism, according to the Trump and Biden administrations and gun control supporters. Bump stocks are now illegal to buy or own because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives classed them as machine guns in 2018. Some have said that bump stocks turn "legal weapons into illegal machines." Former President Trump said as much.
Approximately 520,000 bump stocks were sold between 2010 and 2018, according to the ATF. These attachments swap out the stock of a semiautomatic rifle, allowing the user to simulate automatic firing by using the recoil of the weapon while keeping their finger pressed against the trigger. Critics of the prohibition said the ATF went too far by reclassifying bump stocks as illegal, bringing attention to the agency's longstanding position that the weapons did not fall under the authority of current laws, which was maintained by both the Democratic and Republican administrations.
At first, the Justice Department was supported by a Texas US District Court and a group of conservative justices from the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. But last year, after rehearing, the entire 5th Circuit issued a partial opinion that sided with Cargill. It seemed like the Supreme Court was split down the middle at the oral arguments in late February. Concerned about the possibility of prosecuting anyone who obtained bump stocks prior to their categorization as machine guns, a number of conservative justices voiced their worries.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that innocent people could be put in legal danger if possession was criminalised retroactively, citing concerns over potential unforeseen effects. Who should have authority to impose the ban—the ATF or Congress? This was another major source of dispute. Observed in a variety of circumstances, including financial and environmental laws, this question mirrors larger arguments within the Supreme Court regarding regulatory authority.
Justice Thomas, befitting the technical intricacy of the case, provided an in-depth analysis of semi-automatic rifles, clarifying the difference between bump stocks and automatic firearms. He contrasted the continuous automatic shooting of a real machine gun with the manual input needed to fire many shots with a rifle that had a bump stock. "To shoot multiple shots with a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock, you have to use more than just one trigger function," Thomas explained, drawing attention to the complex inner workings of such weapons.
Significant implications for future regulatory measures and legal challenges in the domain of guns legislation resulted from the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the bump stock ban, which highlights the ongoing issues surrounding gun control, agency jurisdiction, and constitutional interpretation.
