United States Supreme Court strikes down ATF’s “bump stock” rule.

On June 14, 2024, the United States Supreme Court in its decision in Cargill v. Merrick Garland, et al, 22-976 struck down the ATF’s bump stock rule in a 6-3 decision written by Justice Thomas. Tennessee Firearms Association and the Tennessee Firearms Foundation joined Gun Owners of American and Gun Owners Foundation by submitting an amicus brief that urged the Court strike down the ATF’s bump stock rule.

Justice Thomas started the decision as follows:

Congress has long restricted access to “ ‘machinegun[s],’ ”a category of firearms defined by the ability to “shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger.” 26 U. S. C. §5845(b); see also 18 U. S. C. §922(o). Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns. This case asks whether a bump stock—an accessory for a semiautomatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—converts the rifle into a “machinegun.” We hold that it does not and therefore affirm.

Cargill, p. 5.

The Court’s opinion notes, without calling it such, that ATF once again acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner when it had ruled for decades that these bump stock accessories did not convert semiautomatic firearms into statutory machineguns and then, as a result of an incident involving the possession of bump stocks by a murderer, the ATF reversed course and changed its mind.

The question in this case is whether a bump stock transforms a semiautomatic rifle into a “machinegun,” as defined by §5845(b). For many years, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) took the position that semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks were not machineguns under the statute. On more than 10 separate occasions over several administrations, ATF consistently concluded that rifles equipped with bump stocks cannot “automatically” fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.” See App. 16–68. In April 2017, for example, ATF explained that a rifle equipped with a bump stock does not “operat[e] automatically” because “forward pressure must be applied with the support hand to the forward handguard.” Id., at 66. And, because the shooter slides the rifle forward in the stock “to fire each shot, each succeeding shot fir[es] with a single trigger function.” Id., at 67.

ATF abruptly reversed course in response to a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. …

Cargill, p. 7.

When compared with other Second Amendment decisions that the Court had issued in Heller (2008), McDonald (2010) and Bruen (2022), one aspect of this case that is noteworthy is that the Court here relies on no prior decisions for its ruling. Indeed, the Court’s ruling is almost entirely a fact-based analysis of how a semiautomatic firearm that has a bumpstock functions. Ultimately, the Supreme Court agreed with the en banc decision of the 5th Circuit Court of appeals when the Supreme Court concluded that the ATF exceeding its authority by reversing course and attempting to rewrite (something that the ATF refers to as “clarifying”) the statutory definition of a machinegun:

Section 5845(b) defines a “machinegun” as any weapon capable of firing “automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger.” We hold that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” because it cannot fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.” And, even if it could, it would not do so “automatically.” ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns.

Cargill, p. 10.

This decision is yet another example of how politicized agencies, both federal and state, are purposefully and intentionally violating our constitutionally protected rights. They often do so with the blessings if not the mandates from the chief executives (president or governors) and/or with the blessing of the legislative branches. Indeed, over the last 16 years, to the extent that the rights that are protected by the Second Amendment are being protected at all, those protections seem to be coming solely from the judicial branch at this time. Certainly, if you look at the last 14 years in Tennessee under Governors Haslam and Lee and the era of the Republican super majority in the Legislature one can reach no conclusion other than these elected officials have, collectively, breached their oaths of office and have trampled, often intentionally, the right that is expressly declared to be beyond the authority of any government entity to infringe.

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