On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory that enables semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns, which was used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the Trump administration did not adhere to federal law when it banned bump stocks following a 2017 attack in Las Vegas. During this incident, a gunman used assault rifles with bump stocks to fire over 1,000 rounds into a crowd at a country music festival, resulting in 60 deaths and hundreds of injuries within 11 minutes.
A Texas gun shop owner challenged the ban, contending that the Justice Department incorrectly classified the accessories as illegal machine guns.
The Biden administration defended the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), asserting that it made the correct decision to classify bump stocks as enabling firearms to fire at rates of hundreds of rounds per minute.
This case marked the latest gun-related issue before the Supreme Court, where a conservative supermajority had previously expanded gun rights in a landmark 2022 decision and is currently considering another case about federal laws preventing individuals under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns.
The arguments in the bump stock case focused more on whether the ATF had overstepped its authority rather than on Second Amendment rights.
Justices from the court’s liberal wing argued that it was “common sense” to classify anything capable of unleashing a “torrent of bullets” as a machine gun under federal law. In contrast, conservative justices questioned why Congress had not enacted a ban on bump stocks and expressed concerns about the implications of the ATF reversing its stance a decade after declaring the accessories legal.
The Supreme Court took up the case following a division among lower courts regarding bump stocks, which were invented in the early 2000s. Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the ATF determined that bump stocks did not convert semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. The agency reversed this position at Trump’s urging after the Las Vegas shooting and another mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school, which left 17 dead.
Bump stocks are accessories that replace a rifle’s stock, utilizing the gun’s recoil energy to bump the trigger against the shooter’s stationary finger, thus enabling a firing rate comparable to a machine gun. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have their own bans on bump stocks.
The plaintiff, Texas gun shop owner and military veteran Michael Cargill, was represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, funded by conservative donors like the Koch network. His attorneys acknowledged that bump stocks allow rapid fire but argued they require more effort from the shooter to maintain firing.
Government lawyers countered that the effort required from the shooter is minimal and does not legally differentiate bump stocks from machine guns. The Justice Department maintained that the ATF reversed its position on bump stocks after a more thorough examination prompted by the Las Vegas shooting, reaching the correct conclusion.
