SCOTUS bump-stock decision, explained
In a 6-3 decision, Garland v. Cargill, the United States Supreme Court overturned a Trump-era decision from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) outlawing bump stocks on guns. A bump stock is a device which can attach to a semi-automatic rifle and allow it to shoot hundreds of rounds per minute.
After the 2017 Las Vegas shooting where a gunman used rifles fitted with bump stocks to kill 58 people, the ATF did a broader study and concluded that bump stocks converted a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun. Specifically, under federal law, a machine gun is any device that can fire “more than one shot,” “automatically,” and “by a single function of the trigger.”
Writing the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that a rifle fitted with a bump stock did not fire more than a single round “by a single function of the trigger.” For each shot, Thomas wrote, a shooter must “release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before reengaging the trigger for another shot.” The bump stock’s function “merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate ‘functions’ of the trigger” thus decreasing the amount of time needed to pull the trigger again.
Further, Thomas wrote, a bump-stock-equipped rifle does not fire “automatically” because the shooter of a bump-stock fitted rifle “must actively maintain just the right amount of forward pressure on the rifle’s front grip with his nontrigger hand.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion, emphasizing that the majority’s interpretation of the various statutes was the only possible way to read the text. However, Alito noted, because this is a statutory interpretation case Congress could change the law and re-enact a bump stock ban.
Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, having a different interpretation of the statutory text than the majority. Specifically, Sotomayor wrote because a shooter, as long as he maintains forward pressure on the barrel or grip, can fire multiple shots with one trigger pull, a bump-stock-equipped rifle should be considered a machine gun and subject to ATF regulation.
Because this case turned solely on the meaning of federal statutes, and did not directly involve the Second Amendment, the decision’s effects are limited. While the federal ban is struck down, nothing in this decision would affect any state bans on bump stocks. Further, because the decision is not based on a constitutional principle, nothing in the decision would prevent Congress from passing a law changing the results of the decision.
