Are bump stocks machine guns? Supreme Court to decide

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide if bump stocks are machine guns, setting up a major Second Amendment battle that could ban the devices nationwide.

Machine guns are highly regulated in the United States. The fully automatic weapons allow users to fire more than one shot automatically. Sales of machine guns have been barred since 1986, leading to an effort to simulate the automatic fire of a machine gun without having the firearm fall under the government’s regulation.

Semi-automatic weapons were produced to fill this gap. Congress banned semi-automatic assault weapons in 1994; however, the law had a sunset provision allowing it to expire in 2004. Since then, gun manufacturers have been attempting to produce firearm add-ons that allow semi-automatic weapons to replicate automatic fire.

In 2002, an inventor filed a classification request with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives for a bump stock device, the Akins Accelerator. Attaching to a rifle, Akins’ bump stock used a spring to push the firearm back and forth against the user’s trigger finger, creating automatic firing.

The government initially found that because the device only required a user to pull the trigger once, it would not classify as a machine gun. A few years later, ATF would retract that ruling, finding that the bump stock activated the trigger multiple times even though a user only had to pull the trigger a single time. Bump stocks were then reclassified as machine guns under the law in 2006.

Akins challenged the determination but was shot down by two lower courts.

In ATF’s final rule, the agency noted that removing the spring from the bump stock would remove its machine gun designation. Accordingly, manufacturers began to produce bump stocks without springs.

The updated bump stock devices replace the standard gun stock — or the back portion of the firearm. With the new device attached, the firearm’s recoil is used to move the gun back and forth. This moves the trigger away from the user’s finger, allowing the firing mechanism to reset. However, since the shooter is still gripping the weapon, the trigger is continuously bumped by their finger as it slides back and forth. The result is a gun that can fire continuously.

The 2017 massacre at a Las Vegas concert that killed 58 people and wounded 500 more led the ATF to reconsider how bump stocks were classified under law. The shooter utilized bump stocks to fire hundreds of rounds of ammunition into a large crowd.

By March 2018, ATF published an updated definition of machine guns, classifying all bump stock devices under the statute.

Michael Cargill bought two bump stocks in 2018 that he had to surrender a year later after ATF’s new rule was finalized. Cargill filed a lawsuit in a Texas federal court but a bench trial ended in a win for the government.

The ruling was affirmed by a unanimous panel on the court of appeals. Cargill, however, was granted a rehearing en banc. The Fifth Circuit then reversed and remanded.

On remand, the lower court ruled in favor of Cargill, who has since asked for a nationwide vacatur of ATF’s rule.

Appealing to the Supreme Court, the government argued that the Fifth Circuit diverged from three other appeals courts in its ruling. The Fifth Circuit was split evenly on whether bump stocks fell under the definition of machine guns but reversed anyway on the proposition that “lenity” required interpreting the statute not to include bump stocks.

The government urged the justices to reverse the appeals court ruling, arguing it threatened public safety. With a bump stock, a rifle can fire hundreds of bullets per minute, as demonstrated in the Las Vegas mass shooting.

“Congress has long regulated machineguns because of their ‘destructive potential and exacerbation of serious crime,’” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the government’s petition. “Rifles equipped with bump stocks not only satisfy the statutory definition of ‘machinegun’ but also, as a practical matter, present the same ‘heightened capacity for lethality.’”

Currently, sales of machine guns are limited to government entities like the armed forces. Manufacturers are required to register and pay a special tax on the weapons. Each firearm is also registered and given a unique serial number.

“The decision below, however, is likely to mean that manufacturers within the Fifth Circuit will be able to make and sell bump stocks to individuals without background checks and without registering or serializing the devices,” Prelogar wrote. “Given the nationwide traffic in firearms, there is little reason to believe that such devices will remain confined to the Fifth Circuit.”

Cargill agreed with the government that the justices should review the case. In his view, the lower court split on the issue is important to many Americans and warrants the court’s intervention.

“The circuit split leaves citizens throughout the country in a quandary over whether their possession of a bump stock is illegal and might subject them to 10 years’ imprisonment,” Richard Samp, an attorney with the New Civil Liberties Alliance representing Cargill, wrote. “The potential financial loss faced by those who purchased 520,000 bump stocks during the years ATF said they were legal is large; ATF estimates that if its ban is upheld and ATF does not return bump stocks to their original owners, their losses will exceed $100 million.”

In another dispute over guns, the justices also agreed to decide if New York’s insurance commission violated the First Amendment by suggesting companies consider the “reputational risk” of associating with the National Rifle Association. The government argues its warning was intended to address issues of public concern.

The justices will also review an arbitration dispute with crypto-giant Coinbase.

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