Today the Supreme Court decided that a ban on bump stocks is unconstitutional.
In a 6-3 ruling on ideological lines with the court’s conservatives in the majority, the court held that an almost 100-year-old law aimed at banning machine guns cannot legitimately be interpreted to include bump stocks.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a firearm equipped with the accessory does not meet the definition of “machinegun” under federal law.
Here is the ruling; Thomas’s opinion begins on page 5. As you know, “bump stocks” are an accessory used with semiautomatic weapons. They work with the firearm’s recoil to make the weapon fire repeatedly without the shooter pulling the trigger again and again. At least, that’s what I read in news articles; I’ve never fired one.
The question that Thomas addressed was whether a such a modified weapon could be classified as “machine gun.” Thomas writes that “Under the National Firearms Act of 1934, a ‘machinegun’ is “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’” Any full-auto weapon, in other words. Ownership of machine guns and anything used to convert semiautomatic weapons into machine guns is tightly restricted by that same act. Thomas then gives us several pages of verbiage that argues a bump stock doesn’t really convert a semiautomatic weapon into a fully automatic one, so a bump stock is not covered by the NFA of 1934. You can read it all yourself if you care what it says.
Note that a bump stock was used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 60 people, and also in the Buffalo mass shooting in 2022. And probably some others I’m not remembering. In 2017 after the Las Vegas shooting a poll found that 82 percent of Americans wanted bump stocks banned. But we must only pass laws approved by the Imperial Court, will of the people be damned.
The National Firearm Act of 1934, which has been amended a couple of times, is not a total ban on automatic weapons. It does, however, put so many restrictions on acquiring one that it’s just about impossible for civilians to do so legally. Or even illegally; I understand they are very scarce in the U.S. This act was challenged in court, and in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the Court said, among other things, that the Second Amendment protects only the ownership of military-type weapons appropriate for use by a “well-regulated militia.” (There’s a long article here about the Miller decision that looks like an interesting read, but I haven’t gotten to it yet.) And the NFA remains the law of the land.
I don’t believe Miller has been overturned. The issue, of course, is that the old “well-regulated militia” enshrined in the Constitution, in the Second Amendment and in Article I, Section 8, paragraphs 15 and 16, carried muzzle-loading muskets that the men were required to obtain themselves. Hence, a right to own firearms had to be protected for the sake of the militia. But the state militia system — which, truth be told, was never all that effective at defense — was reorganized as the National Guard in 1903. Guardsmen don’t supply their own weapons, I don’t believe, so the purpose of protecting firearm ownership for the sake of the militia is kind of outmoded. The 2008 Heller decision then expanded the right to carry arms beyond just militia service, but didn’t eliminate the connection to the long-ago self-armed militia entirely.
But it seems to me that firearm technology has changed so drastically that any opinion about what is or is not a “military-type weapon” protected by the Second Amendment can get pretty arbitrary, especially since it was decided a long time ago that full-auto weapons are not protected. And I strongly suspect that if we could wake up and reconstitute the authors of the Second Amendment and show them what people are shooting now, they’d be shocked and horrified and want to repeal the amendment themselves.
Speaking of Clarence Thomas — see Harlan Crow Provided Clarence Thomas at Least 3 Previously Undisclosed Private Jet Trips, Senate Probe Finds at ProPublica.
Update: More analysis by Mark Joseph Stern at Slate:
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority carved a huge loophole into the federal prohibition against machine guns on Friday, striking down a bump stock ban first enacted in 2018 by the Trump administration. Its 6–3 decision allows civilians to convert AR-15–style rifles into automatic weapons that can fire at a rate of 400–800 rounds per minute. One might hope a ruling that stands to inflict so much carnage would, at least, be indisputably compelled by law. It is not. Far from it: To reach this result, Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion for the court tortures statutory text beyond all recognition, defying Congress’ clear and (until now) well-established commands. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained in dissent, the supermajority flouts the “ordinary meaning” of the law, adopting an “artificially narrow” interpretation that will have “deadly consequences.” This Supreme Court will be squarely at fault for the next mass shooting enabled by a legal bump stock. …
… For years, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had been monitoring these devices; the agency found some unlawful, depending on their precise mechanisms, but did not take a formal position overall. The Las Vegas shooting prompted ATF to conclude that bump stocks transform semiautomatic rifles into machine guns, rendering them illegal under a long-standing federal statute. That’s because this law bans “any part designed and intended solely and exclusively” for “converting a weapon into a machinegun.” And a “machinegun” is defined as any firearm that fires “automatically” by “a single function of the trigger.” After extensive deliberation, ATF found that bump stock–equipped rifles do exactly that.
Now the Supreme Court has decided that it understands firearms better than the ATF. Thomas’ majority opinion reads like the fevered work of a gun fetishist, complete with diagrams and even a GIF. The justice, who worships at the altar of the firearm, plainly relished the opportunity to depict the inner workings of these cherished tools of slaughter. (It’s no surprise that he borrowed the images from the avidly pro-gun Firearms Policy Foundation.) To reach his preferred result, Thomas falsely accused ATF of taking the “position” that bump stocks were legal, then “abruptly” reversing course after the Las Vegas shooting. This account is dead wrong: ATF took a careful, case-by-case view of different bump stock–like devices as gunmakers developed them, deeming some permissible and others unlawful. The gun industry pushed these devices into the mainstream by deceiving ATF about their purpose; in one case, for instance, a manufacturer won approval from the agency by claiming a bump stock was designed to accommodate people with limited hand strength—then turned around and marketed it as the next best thing to a machine gun.
After wrongly accusing the agency of a politically motivated about-face—and using this charge to discount its expertise and authority—Thomas adopted a highly technical interpretation of the statute that does not align with its text. A “single function of the trigger,” he wrote, does not mean a single pull of the trigger, but rather a complete “cycle” of the spring-loaded hammer inside the gun. Because the hammer (rapidly) resets to its original position between shots, Thomas concluded, “bump firing” involves more than “a single function of the trigger.” And because the shooter must “actively maintain” a particular stance to put pressure on certain parts of the weapon, the justice wrote, the resulting fire is not truly “automatic.”
You don't need a bump stock to bump fire a semi-auto rifle. All it takes is a little practice. The issue here was not so much the bump stock as it was the ATF's interpretation of a Law in a way that negated the Legislative branch's constitutional authority and the letter of the law. The same with pistol braces and private sales.
The definitions, either way, are entrely arbitrary. And getting any kind of gun control law out of Congress ain't gonna happen this year.
Thank goodness that a ban on bump stocks won't actually harm anyone, then. It's just like, there's no reason not to limit the rounds in a magazine, because a practiced person with a lot of magazines can fire just as fast.
So, since neither restriction causes any harm, why would anyone care? Well, you care, obviously, and you are sure your version of the Constitution is right – maybe even divinely inspired.
But your type keeps saying "it doesn't matter; sure, a bump stock caused a big massacre to be much worse, but anyone who practices enough could slaughter just as many!"
Well… how many practiced mass shootings have their been since then? Seems to me you *are* arguing for greater ease of slaughter, for no real reason, since you can do exactly the same thing, with a little practice, instead of a mechanical aid.
Why are you doing that? I mean, does it make you proud to think more people might die pointlessly?
Did you read my comment at all? This case had little to nothing to do with bump stocks or the second amendment. This was about separation of powers. The executive branch (in this case the ATF) can’t take the plain text of a law and change its meaning with an agency ruling that subverts the Legislative Branch. It’s anti-Democratic and a perfect example of the Trump Administration’s Executive overreach. Why do you support Trump?
You're asking if I read that? Yeah.
Do I accept your interpretation of the letter of the law and constitutional authority? No, you're some random poster who can't help but say "it's okay, no harm done, not *really*, because, a little practice, yada yada, but, it's right, because I say so."
Do you want to have a serious conversation? Maybe the extra slaughter deserves a mention… I mean, people dying *is* important, right? I think it's important.
Gun nuts want us to forget all about the death, and I don't blame them – it makes many of 'em look like real sickos. But it's important.
So is deflecting propaganda… IMO of course.
“This was about separation of powers. The executive branch (in this case the ATF) can’t take the plain text of a law and change its meaning with an agency ruling that subverts the Legislative Branch.”
The ATF didn’t change a “law.” They made a change in the code of federal regulations. The code of federal regulations is a list of rules about how laws are to be applied that are issued by the executive branch agencies. The federal laws in question that were passed by Congress don’t mention bump stocks. It was the ATF that had originally decided bump stocks didn’t fall under the “machine gun” heading, not Congress. Federal agencies are allowed to change their own rules. There is a process for that called “rulemaking.” My post gets deeper into the history weeds of why a “machine gun” can be regulated but a “not machine gun” can’t, and why the whole reasoning behind that is totally arbitrary. And you’ve just lost your commenting privileges here. Bye. Nice knowihng you.
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/bump-stocks
I hope I attached this correctly, as the ATF declared that the addition of bumpstocks rendered the receiving weapon by definition a machine gun, with all the restrictions on machine guns in effect. Including a ban on bumpstocks.
This was in 2019, with no political opposition when it became effective. The president at the time has been in the news lately. Something about 34 felony convictions or whatnot.
Thank goodness. Who wants to be stripped of the right to bear arms when the folks with the tiki torches get all riled up come November?
You're right – today, arms are supplied by the government. The original state militias were called to own their own weapons, but that was so the government couldn't lock them all away. So a person might be told to report for service, with musket or rifle, ammo, powder, etc., and that was normal. But even then, people weren't thinking of the right to own cannons, just in case the feds got too uppity. They were thinking muskets and rifles.
One of the interesting tricks played by the Republicans in this game is to say that "bear" means "carry", as in "to bear a backpack, canteen, and longarm on a hike" and not "bear weapons under orders against the enemy."
Because, seriously, why would the Second Amendment be saying people have the right to bear arms under orders, with military discipline? Does it even *talk* about militias, or does it just say "the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be infringed"?
Anyway: there are six people on the SCOTUS who think they get to define the Constitution, so it doesn't matter what the laws, including the Constitution, actually say. Still: it's good to think about wording, so you can see where and why Republicans are wrong.
Also the government (federal and state) didn't have any money.
"Outmoded", exactly, outmoded since not long after it was created.
More chaos, more corruption, less justice. What would the founding fathers say if they knew one day a SCTUS judge could be bought. In hindsight maybe Ben Franklin's son was on the better side of the Revolutionary War for the long run.
I'm not sure the ruling is about bumpstocks as much as it's a reflection of an unconstitutional and widely held belief that the "founders" intended that citizens should be able to overthrow the government. The oft-cited quote of Jefferson about watering the tree of liberty has deep roots with the anti-government crowd. A major issue for Trump is pardoning the J6 insurrectionists and rewriting that history, expunging the facts of the J6 Committee.
I don't care how many aging wannabe Rambos you arm with bumpstocks, they can't go against federal cops and/or federal troops if they were called out legitimately under the Insurrection Act. But is the USSC saying that if you can pull off toppling the government, we aren't going to stand in your way?
When the Confederacy adopted a Constitution, it WAS the original US Constitution, stripped of any restrictions on slavery. In other words, the Confederates saw themselves as the guardians of the actual intent of the founding fathers. The recent "fad" of trying to abolish slavery is/was a novel new and foreign idea. (Never mind that it was hotly debated when the Constitution was written.)
So if the new Civil War can split and drive the country into chaos, the USSC stands ready to endorse (completely outside the framework of the Constitution) an updated version of the Constitution that stacks the deck of political power entirely in favor of conservatives. (Yeah, I'm paranoid, but am I wrong?)
Revolution isn't possible if the foot soldiers of the revolution aren't willing to die. It's not enough to be ready to kill – the opposition is adept and ready to kill also. So you better be willing to die, in battle or in prison. As I see it, the USSC proposes that the revolutionaries think they are well-armed and bad-ass. Just to even things out.
If I had the money, I'd equip and have training for all-black BLM militias with AR-15s set up with bumpstocks. And lots of video with the "militia" in ski-masks. Because the narrative is that their side has all the guns. It should be pointed out that the USSC ruling applies to everyone. Are you sure you want to play?
And, of course, that’s a myth unsupported by history. Ignorance loves a vacuum, and a lot of the myth-making stems from most people these days being completely ignorant of the old state militia system and how how it worked. The Founders decided they wanted a well-regulated citizen milita to provide for defense rather than a regular army, because they feared a regular army might become an oppressive force as the occupying British army had been. Washington and Hamilton disagreed, because they had low regard for the military effectiveness of citizen militias, but they were outvoted. The militia was organized by Congress and could be un-organized by Congress, and Congress certainly had no interest in maintaining an armed force that was dedicated to overthrowing them. Also a citizen milita was more cost effective.
"Ignorance loves a vacuum", outstanding!!! So much truth packed into that one paragraph, thank you!