In a significant setback for the Biden administration, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the federal prohibition on "bump stocks," firearm accessories that enable semi-automatic rifles to fire at an accelerated rate, is unlawful.
This ruling, as reported by CNBC, was delivered with a 6-3 majority, with the court's conservative justices forming the majority.
The court's decision was based on the interpretation of a nearly century-old law designed to ban machine guns. The justices concluded that this law could not be legitimately extended to include bump stocks. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, stated that the presence of the accessory does not transform a firearm into a "machinegun" as defined by federal law.
This decision sparked a strong dissent from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote, "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." In a rare move, Sotomayor read a summary of her dissent in court.
Despite the federal ban being overturned, bump stocks will not be widely available across the country. Eighteen states have already enacted their own bans, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit gun-control group. Congress also retains the power to act on this issue.
The prohibition on bump stocks was implemented by the Trump administration following the Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, used firearms equipped with bump stocks to attack a country music festival, resulting in the initial death of 58 people.
In 2019, the Supreme Court declined to block the regulation. Since then, the court has shifted further to the right, with conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, replacing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away in 2020. The conservative justices now hold a 6-3 majority and have previously supported gun rights.
The National Firearms Act, enacted in 1934, was designed to regulate machine guns in response to gangster violence during the Prohibition era. The lawsuit challenging the bump stock ban was brought by Texas-based gun owner Michael Cargill, a licensed dealer who owned two bump stocks before the ban and subsequently surrendered them to the government.
Bump stocks utilize the recoil energy of a trigger pull to enable the user to fire up to hundreds of rounds with what the federal government terms "a single motion." Cargill's lawyers argue that this is a difficult skill to master.
Initially, some gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, supported President Donald Trump's move to regulate bump stocks after the Las Vegas shooting. However, they have since opposed it.
The case does not implicate the scope of the right to bear arms under the Constitution's Second Amendment. The challengers argue that the government does not have the authority to ban bump stocks under the 1934 law.
The 1968 Gun Control Act defined "machine gun" to include accessories "for use in converting a weapon" into a machine gun, and the ATF concluded that bump stocks meet that definition.
The legal battle largely revolved around the definition of a machine gun as a weapon that can automatically fire more than one shot "by a single function of the trigger." The government argued that the phrase refers to the actions of the shooter, with a single action required to fire multiple shots. Cargill's lawyers argued that it refers to the action inside the firearm when the trigger is engaged. Because a bump stock still requires the trigger to be engaged for each shot, it is not a machine gun, they argued.
Lower courts were divided over the issue, with both the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit ruling that the ban was unlawful.
The Biden administration appealed in both cases, while gun rights advocates contested ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that upheld the ban.
The court has backed gun rights in cases directly addressing the scope of the Second Amendment, including the 2022 ruling that found there is a right to carry a handgun outside the home.
However, in a case argued in November, the court indicated it might stop short of striking down some long-standing gun laws in a case involving a ban on possessing firearms by people accused of domestic violence. This indicates that while the court's conservative majority is willing to uphold gun rights, it may not be prepared to dismantle all gun control measures.
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