Perhaps the greatest threat to our right to keep and bear arms at the federal level are regulations created by unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch. Unlike members of Congress, executive-branch officials don’t have to face voters to keep their job, so regulations are much more easily adopted than is new legislation.
And that’s why the Supreme Court’s newest decision on regulatory power is so important for the future of the Second Amendment.
On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) unlawfully exceeded its authority by classifying bump stocks as machine guns.
The National Firearms Act defines a “machinegun” as “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,” including any “part designed and intended solely and exclusively … for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun.” The ATF had long classified bump stocks—which enable rapid fire with semi-automatic firearms while still requiring multiple functions of the trigger—as non-machine guns. But, in 2018, the ATF reversed course and promulgated a rule altering the statutory definition of “machinegun” and declaring that bump stocks are included.
Michael Cargill, a gun-store owner in Texas, challenged the classification of bump stocks as “machineguns” with the help of the New Civil Liberties Alliance. They argued that ATF did not have the authority to make the classification because bump stocks clearly did not fit within the statutory definition of “machinegun.” NRA filed amicus curiae briefs in the Fifth Circuit and at the Supreme Court in support of Cargill.
The Supreme Court agreed with Cargill and held that the NFA’s definition of “machinegun” clearly does not cover bump stocks, and thus that the ATF exceeded its statutory authority by classifying a bump stock as such. Bump stocks, the Court determined, are not machine guns because (1) they do not enable semi-automatic firearms to fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger,” (2) and even if they did, the firearm would not be firing “automatically.” Rather, the Court explained, “[a] bump stock merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate ‘functions’ of the trigger.”
The ruling makes clear, as Justice Alito emphasized in a concurring opinion, that only an act of Congress—not an ATF rule—can prohibit bump stocks. In addition to reining in the ATF’s unlawful rule, the Cargill ruling will help ensure that future unelected government officials cannot ban firearms and accessories by administrative fiat. The ruling also casts doubt on recent ATF rules—including the “pistol brace,” “frame or receiver,” and “engaged in the business” rules—in which the ATF contradicts Congress’s explicit statutory language.
In fact, attorneys in an NRA-supported challenge to the ATF’s reclassification of firearms with pistol-stabilizing braces filed a letter of supplemental authority with the Eighth Circuit shortly after the Supreme Court released its opinion. That challenge is pending a decision from the court that could be released in the near future.
The dissenting opinion in Cargill was authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and would have wholly endorsed ATF’s claim that bump stocks are legally “machineguns.” ATF’s argument depended on the theory that the action of pushing forward on the handguard of a rifle equipped with a bump stock is effectively the firearm’s “trigger.” The majority opinion countered that this ignores the fact that the operator of a firearm with an attached bump stock must maintain consistent trigger finger placement and pull the firearm’s actual trigger every time the firearm discharges.
And, as Justice Thomas pointed out, ATF’s theory could have been used to classify semi-automatic firearms as “machineguns” because all are generally capable of being bump fired: “Moreover, ATF’s position is logically inconsistent because its reasoning would also mean that a semiautomatic rifle without a bump stock is capable of firing more than one shot by a ‘single function of the trigger.’” Perhaps the eventual classification of all semi-automatic firearms as “machineguns” was entirely the point, coming from those who seek to deprive law-abiding Americans of the most-effective firearms for self-defense.
This decision once again highlights the importance of federal judges who will uphold the rule of law and ignore political and mainstream media pressure to limit gun rights in any way possible. As this article was going to print, President Biden was imploring Americans to support his candidacy so that he can appoint “progressive” Supreme Court Justices in another term. If that happens, we could end up with federal courts that would defer to unelected bureaucrats and gut the Second Amendment. That’s why it’s critical that all freedom-loving Americans vote to defeat Joe Biden this November.
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