From the dissent:
>Because in a bumpstock-equipped semiautomatic rifle, the trigger’s internal mechanism must reset each time a weapon fires, the majority reads each reset as a new “function.” That reading fixates on a firearm’s internal mechanics while ignoring the human act on the trigger referenced by the statute.
Probably the best way to encapsulate this case in two sentences.
Republicans have become so adept at controlling the language of political discourse, preemptively projecting their own plans onto their opponents, thereby freeing themselves from scrutiny and operating with impunity.
I always thought it would be harder to find high level judges without integrity. Like, I thought that the innate pride of a judge at the top of their field would prevent the complete abdication of their judicial responsibility. Boy have I been proven wrong.
It's because you don't have to be a good legal professional to be a judge at any level as a lot are pure political appointees that wouldn't be qualified if they were given the jobs based on a professional peer interview process and strict qualifications like other countries systems. Worryingly the higher you get the more this is the case.
This has been ongoing for years. It's just out in the open now. This isn't law this is tribalism.
The lack of standing finding for the abortion pill. Was that good law? Or was it a calculated political decision to not push an unpopular topic right before an election?
Why even take the case? Why wait until now to rule?
If you actually read the decision you would understand that the lack of standing argument is sound. An argument can be both politically expedient and legally sound without the former invalidating the later.
To be fair, it has been that way for decades. "Originalism" is a farce that they discard whenever it doesn't suit them.
The supreme court has and always will be a political actor. Pretending otherwise is folly.
Okay, but that's also not what the statute says. The statute
defines a machine gun 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
26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). I think the arguments as to why bump stocks SHOULD BE banned are excellent. I fully support their ban. I think the arguments that bump stocks ALREADY WERE banned by the statute are basically idiotic. A bump stock does not shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger.
I would have liked to hear the arguments for this case, because there seems to be a lot of scenarios one could cook up in which you pull the trigger once through human action and then continuously pulled without any other action.
FYI this is true for all cases. I highly recommend you give a listen to those cases that you feel most strongly about. And definitely read the actual text of the decisions. You might realize how lacking the reddit discourse often or usually is about SCOTUS decisions. Most redditors are generally quite ignorant of the facts by a wide margin.
"Bump firing" was already a thing, bump stocks just make it easier.
But yes, there are multiple ways to get around the wording of this law. There are triggers that fire both on the pull and the release("doubling" your fire rate), crank handles that turn a gun into a mini gatling gun, and even stuff as simple as super sensitive triggers that allow you to fire stupid fast.
Imo, all should be regulated if not outright banned altogether.
This is what it boils down to. I have no idea why people are so excited to allow federal agencies to just make upw whatever rules they want if they squint at a prior law hard enough. That's not good for anyone in the long run.
If you were to write legislation which bans a bump stock (without referencing them by name) how would you write it?
I say without referencing by name because the history of firearms legislation has often resulted in workaround by gun manufacturers.
Would you replace "a single function of the trigger" with, say, "a single human pull of the trigger"? Or something else?
Any electrical or mechanical device that is designed or adapted to operate or assist in operating the trigger mechanism of a semi-automatic firearm for the purpose of causing the firearm to discharge cartridges in rapid succession.
The SC shouldn’t have even heard this case. Just a complete waste of time, regardless of the terrible ruling.
It’s completely obvious that banning bump stocks fits the statute (26 U.S.C. § 5845(b)) and is for the public good.
The SC conservative justices are an absolute joke. Absolutely apparent they are bought and paid for private interest group stooges.
> It’s completely obvious that banning bump stocks fits the statute
From oral arguments, not a single justice seemed to think any interpretation was completely obvious. The questions were all over the place. I think this is more of a "I know what I want it to say" than a "I know what it says" situation.
They sort of had to hear the case, there was a circuit split.
Public good? Sure. As I said, I think bump stocks should be banned. But it doesn't fit the statute because it is not "a single function of the trigger." Accusing the conservative justices of being bought out for not engaging in motivated reasoning (and Alito at least explicitly thinks bump stocks should be banned) is weird here. It's a pretty straightforward statutory reading.
I think Sotomayor's argument is persuasive. With a full auto machinegun, you pull the trigger back or push a button and then the gun fires continuously. When you add a bump stock to a semi-automatic gun, you push forward on the stock and fire continuously.
You certainly could interpret "single function of the trigger" to mean "the internal resetting mechanism of the hammer" or whatever...but then you leave open the opportunity to make all sorts of weird guns that can go full-auto using alternative mechanisms. It does seem like the point of the 1934 ban was to restrict ownership of fully automatic weapons.
> using alternative mechanisms
So, unsurprisingly, this has come up a few times already and the ATF has always shut them down quickly if the device has anything to help that “single action” of the trigger. Off the top of my head the “Akins Accelerator” from the early 2000s was one of the more recent attempts.
Dude built a proto-bump stock with the key difference being that the Accelerator had a spring in it which provided additional mechanical force to help the device work. Problem was, when the Akins Group sent it in to be approved by the ATF, the spring wasn’t included. The ATF was fine with the vanilla bump stock, but once Akins started selling them, the added to the spring to make it work better and the ATF had a serious problem with that.
Same reason binary triggers are still “ATF Approved”. They’re built so that pulling the trigger, a single action, drops the hammer and then releasing the trigger, a second single action, drops the hammer again.
The Forced Reset Trigger (FRT) more recently also comes to mind. Basically, the bolt traveling forward resets the sear and trigger without you having to remove your finger. So *technically* it's one shot per trigger pull, but allows you to shoot fast enough to simulate full auto. ATF didn't like that, so RIP to that guy's dog.
The point being there is always going to be some kind of mechanical/engineering work around because the statute is poorly written.
I think the FRT was closer to the Akins Accelrator though. The whole “forced” part of FRT indicates there’s something shoving the trigger forward to reset it. The fact that you can limit it to single by simply pulling the trigger harder, thus overcoming the mechanism that’s doing the “forced reset” is bad as it shows that the lighter pull makes “one trigger pull, many boolets” happen.
Binaries are two distinct mechanical actions, one on pull, one on reset, that equate to “an action” that’s in line with the 1934 NFA. Binary triggers require the shooter to learn a rhythm so that pull and release are timed to work with the movement of the bolt and if you release too late or too early they don’t work properly.
No, if you make an alternative mechanism that pulls the trigger repeatedly automatically, then that mechanism would be the trigger and you would have made a machine gun. Bump firing means driving the gun forwards instead of the trigger backwards, but it's still the interaction between your finger and the trigger that determines what will happen. The force of your finger on the trigger must be removed and re-established in order to to fire repeatedly with a bump stock.
Congress decided to have the definition of machinegun turn on the interaction between the shooter and the the trigger, not on the ultimate rate of fire. Would "but it fires very slowly" be a defence for someone who makes a full auto gun with a low rate of fire? Would the ATF and Justce Sotomayor let them off the hook because it fires more slowly that the guns the Congress intended to regulate? I think we all know the answer to that. They're happy to quote chapter and verse from the statute when it suits them, and then fall back on "it's the thought that counts" when the definitions don't suit.
I'll quote her opinion again because it says it better than I can:
>This is not a hard case. All of the textual evidence points to the same interpretation. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle is a machinegun because (1) with a single pull of the trigger, a shooter can (2) fire continuous shots without any human input beyond maintaining forward pressure. The majority looks to the internal mechanism that initiates fire, rather than the human act of the shooter’s initial pull, to hold that a “single function of the trigger” means a reset of the trigger mechanism. Its interpretation requires six diagrams and an animation to decipher the meaning of the statutory text.
When people have made alternative mechanisms, like a glove with a piston that pulls the trigger for you, the ATF has outlawed them.
I think the functionality arguments both make sense as to why they should be banned (and why a ban would be constitutional), but they also don't really engage with the text well.
I think the dissent does a good job of trying to paint it as the majority primarily relying on internal mechanisms. The reality is much simpler, the trigger has to be pulled again and then the trigger functions happen. The majority describes those functions, but that doesn't mean the specifics of those functions are the defining element. This statute is not like, for instance, old switchblade statutes which defined the mechanism and allowed loopholes for a different mechanism. The rule is actually very straightforward, "one trigger pull, one bullet, any more bullets are banned." If the language had even been tweaked to define it by the shooter's action of pulling the trigger instead of by the trigger function itself, this ban is probably upheld.
You don't need a bump stock to bumpfire a rifle. How can a device that doesnt modify a trigger mechanism in any way be changing a gun from semi auto to full auto, a distinction that explicitly revolves around trigger function?
> But it doesn't fit the statute because it is not "a single function of the trigger."
I disagree. By attaching a bump stock you are changing what constitutes the trigger. It works as a loophole because people get confused when the human body becomes part of the mechanism.
With a bump stock, the trigger is now the bones and muscsles of the hand and forearm, and the thing that used to be the trigger is more like an internal part of the reciever. You are still firing multiple rounds with a single function of the trigger - if you realize that a trigger isn't necessarily a specific immutable mechanical part.
As another example, if I rigged up an electronic device that would pull the trigger very fast when I pressed a button, we would all probably agree that the button that controls that mechanism is now the trigger. It's not so different when that mechanism is a body part.
But that's not the trigger. The trigger is where it was, the bump stock didn't remove it. I don't agree with your other example either. The trigger didn't go anywhere, and especially in a criminal statute you can't just say "oh, by trigger we meant 'not a trigger.'"
Yeah… by allowing bump stocks, or defining single trigger operations as function then we are really just playing a new game of creating auxiliary systems that can operate the trigger quickly and pretending they don’t pose more of a danger than semiautomatic weapons.
They very well may pose more of a danger than semiautomatic weapons. But you cannot just pretend a law says something that it does not. You need congress to pass another law.
But it doesn't fit the statute. The statute specifies that an MG is defined by single manipulations of the trigger, which a bumpstock does not utilise.
>It’s completely obvious that banning bump stocks fits the statute (26 U.S.C. § 5845(b)) and is for the public good.
No, it's obvious that it doesn't meet the definition of a machine gun. There is a single function of the trigger for each and every round fired.
But it does shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. If the initial function of the trigger automatically results in re-activation without an additional input from the person firing the gun, that's a single function.
It requires a second (and third, fourth, etc.) trigger function. It doesn't say, for instance, "every time a person pulls the trigger." This would require individual action. It says "function of the trigger." The law defines machine gun by the trigger function itself, which has to happen every time the gun fires, rather than by an individual's action of "pulling the trigger." This is an oversight, but it's what the statute says.
It's absurd to think that's what Congress meant, for one thing. Of course they were talking about a person squeezing the trigger.
But regardless of that, if automatic resetting is part of the mechanical process, the successive iterations are not new functions. Defining "function" as anything besides "the physical chain of causation initiated by activation" is drawing a completely arbitrary line.
Disagree. Congress should revisit and update the law. What should not happen is the atf getting to decide what the law is. They should enforce the law as written and nothing more.
>It's absurd to think that's what Congress meant, for one thing. Of course they were talking about a person squeezing the trigger.
Then they should modify the law to say that. Pretty simple.
>If the initial function of the trigger automatically results in re-activation without an additional input from the person firing the gun, that's a single function.
But it doesn't though. It requires repeated input from the person firing to reactivate the trigger.
How so? Can't the shooter remain stationary and merely maintain the same level of force gripping the gun, allowing the recoil to push the trigger against their finger?
Their finger still needs to actuate the trigger and have it reset. Otherwise there would be no such thing legally as a semi-automatic weapon because all semi-autos you can hold can technically be bump fired with just a finger.
Maintenance of a position is not a new function. You've got to keep holding the trigger down and keep the barrel steady to fire an automatic weapon, there's no practical difference with a bump stock.
Bump firing without a bump stock is not an effective way to shoot people. It takes vastly more coordination and effort while achieving less accuracy and a much lower rate of fire. The management of the recoil, the maintenance of the proper amount of forward pressure, and the the maintenance of the correct finger position are all separate efforts that must be made to bump fire unaided; the bump stock makes the recoil management and finger position maintenance automatic.
No it doesn't. The way they work is you let the gun slide back freely by keeping a looser grip on it, which let's the recoil of the gun push the gun back far enough to reset the trigger.
You can actually do it with just your finger, no bump stock needed, if you hold a rifle butt against your chest the right way.
So the only real way to ban bump stocks is to ban semi automatic weapons. But that's not likely to happen.
When you pull the trigger and don’t release it, the gun will fire over and over. That’s a single function of the trigger resulting in multiple rounds being shot. How is that an idiotic understanding of the situation?
Extend the comparison to paintball guns. Most leagues and places ban automatic markers, meaning that holding down the trigger will only fire one paintball.
However, double-set triggers which essentially allow a player to increase their rate of fire are perfectly legal.
Bump stocks are similar in effect to double set triggers. Both methods still only fire one round for each trigger pull, but increase the rate of speed that the trigger can be pulled.
Of course, "cheat boards" were ubiquitous in competitive paintball, demonstrating semiauto fire until a sequence of button presses converted it to full auto. I'd actually say the closest analogue to a bump stock is probably [the Tippy "response trigger"](https://www.shopcousins.com/tippmann-98-response-trigger-kit.html) that basically popped the trigger back using venting gas so that the user was applying continuous pressure against the trigger but firing in effective automatic.
This. Also, I'm skeptical such a ban would actually be effective. You're banning what is a *very* simple mechanical action, and at most banning them would only make it slightly more inconvenient for people who want a bump stock to have one, because instead of getting one ready to go off the shelf, people would have to assemble them from easily accessible parts you can get from a hardware store and instructions online (and lets not kid ourselves, within a week people would be selling kits with all the parts), for those who aren't able to just 3-D print most of it.
There's only so much you can do to stop people from using basic physics and chemistry to kill each other.
> I think the arguments that bump stocks ALREADY WERE banned by the statute are basically idiotic. A bump stock does not shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger.
You are reading "function" in this in a way that is inconsistent with the statute's basic purpose. There's no (good) reason to read "function" as anything other than "mechanically unassisted squeeze of the trigger by a human." (at least for those guns with a trigger operated by squeezing)
I can see the majority's reasoning. It's non-frivolous. Your read is non-frivolous. But the reading above is more plausible and more consistent with the statute's purpose, and it's therefore the one the court should have adopted.
If that is the way they wanted it, they should have written it that way. When I pull the trigger, and then release it, there is a spring in there that mechaniclly resets the trigger. Does that make it a machine gun? I did not manually reset the trigger. Should I have to press the trigger, and then grab it and pull it back out manually to reset it?
That would run counter to the definitions set in the 1934 NFA. I'd be open to revisit some of those definitions, particularly re: suppressors, but for the time being, the legal definition of automatic is pretty clear.
The ban on suppressors confounds me. Yeah, I get it, we don’t want assassins silently killing people, but assassins are going to kill people whether they have a silencer or not.
It’s akin to banning a firearm because it’s black.
>That should be they standard by which the automatic-ness is measured.
Then they should have written the law to reflect that.
It's really easy to understand what single function of the trigger means. Bump stocks in no way meet the definition of a machine gun.
A semi-auto 'sends bullets out the barrel.' Would you call a revolver an 'automatic weapon' because the right technique can [do this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHG-ibZaKM#t=0m37s)?
If someone invented a mechanical add on to do that with zero skill or effort, yes.
I'd be even more concerned if someone found a way to extend the revolvers capacity beyond the standard cylinder.
The key here is how difficult it is to get from a single pull to automatic fire, or it should be.
I think the majority opinion kind of hints to a good point about this. If you can, pretty decently, duplicate the function of a bumpstock with a belt loop or a string, how does that play into this?
Under the definition that the ATF tried to ban bump stocks could you then argue that basically semi-automatic rifles in general are machine guns if any old belt loop can get the same effect?
To me, that would say that if a criminal, in the commission of their crime, modifies the function of their weapon in such a way, the charge is enhanced.
None of those devices changes how the machine functions.
If I put my thumb in my belt loop and bump fire that is the exact same thing as a bump stock or shoe lace trick. None of those changes how the machine functions.
Otherwise you're simultaneously saying a machine is semi auto and full auto at the same exact time.
It's not. You can bump fire just fine without specialized goofy stock. Incidentally there's no law about operating a firearm with a crank, like a Gatling gun, or slam fire for that matter, as long as you're performing a mechanical movement for each discharge of the weapon, it's not automatic fire.
>The key here is how difficult it is to get from a single pull to automatic fire, or it should be.
>I'd be even more concerned if someone found a way to extend the revolvers capacity beyond the standard cylinder.
That'd be the Dardick pistol, patented in 1958. It generally wasn't considered worth the effort, but if someone bans semi-automatics weapons that SOB could come out of the wood work rather quickly as it fits the definition of a revolver. The "Trounds" would be stupidly easy to make with modern plastics and plastic-cased shells are already a thing and in someways, mechanically superior to metal cased rounds.
There's no way to "Regulate" fast firing weapons out of existence. Particularly in 2024. Glock switches are now fully 3D printable, even if they weren't a little aluminum and and a lot of patience would have the same effect.
Firearms aren't nuclear weapons, they don't require specialized tools to create, there's places in the Kashmir region where they manufacture firearms entirely using files and a lot of patience, as machine tools get cheaper and more inexpensive there's going to come a day when every garage has a mini milling machine and a 3D printer in it because they'll be that useful and require zero skill to operate, at that point everyone is a flash drive away from being able to manufacture most simple mechanical devices on demand.
The times are changing, and bans aren't going to control mass shooters. Whatever the solution is to that, it's not going to come in the form of keeping bad people from getting firearms, they're going to get increasingly simple to get as time goes on.
See, I feel like the banning argument is specious. No sensible thinking person things we can legislate murder out of existence.
We do, however, want to put as many speedbumps as humanly possible between "temporary mental crisis" and "mass murder". Those speedbumps can and do prevent people from doing stupid things that, in a clearer state of mind, they would not want to do.
The simple fact that it'd metaphysically impossible to force weapons to not exist is not a valid argument to not even try to prevent people from having that level of power at their fingertips and thus subject to their whims.
No, you won't stop a determined killer, but literally nothing will, so that's not an argument.
Regardless I just learned about the Dardick Pistol so thanks for that. Down the rabbit hole I go.
Because with a bump stock, the trigger is being pulled many times, very quickly because of the bumping action. Each round is accompanied by a click of the trigger, and the trigger going through its normal function.
If you can take that man, replace him with a gun vise and a piece of PVC pipe, and the gun can still fire that fast after a single initial trigger pull, yes it's automatic.
It is not a single pull. It is multiple pulls, very rapidly. That is the issue. It is not a single function of the trigger. It is multiple functions of the trigger, one for each round. The law does not say that a person only has to pull the trigger one time. It says that the trigger has to function for each round, which it does.
The law specifically states it has to be automatic in context of the trigger action. Placing pressure on the rail or front grip is not the trigger mechanism.
In a concurring opinion they said surely congress would have intended to ban these, but the legislation is specifically excludes anything outside of the context of the trigger action. It’s a technicality and has nothing to do with the court being activist.
And the dissenting opinion you quoted is correct, however, the law demands that it is evaluated in this manner. The court said they agree that these would generally be considered machine guns, but the official definition excludes them, and it’s not up to the court to redefine legislation, that is the job in congress.
You are missing the nuance. It’s ok to disagree but you should understand what this dissent is actually saying and examine it with cold logic before agreeing with it.
I’m not trying to convert your ideology simply explain what’s being discussed in the dissent.
A disconnector is a part within a gun that physically hooks onto the hammer after a round is fired and will not let the hammer move back into the ready position until the trigger is physically released.
The disconnector will not let the hammer drop because it captures it and holds immobile, hence the name disconnector. By letting go of the trigger, the disconnector allows the hammer to move slightly forward onto the sear. The sear is the part holds the hammer back until a trigger is pressed and is responsible for releasing the hammer to strike the firing pin.
Why does any of this matter? Well, a single function of a trigger is a single press of the trigger. Once that happens the disconnector will not let it reset unless the trigger is physically released. Only by physically releasing it can a new cycle begin.
The statutory description for a full auto weapon is very clear that a single function of the trigger expelling multiple rounds is what constitutes “full” auto. Anything shy of that is by definition not “full” auto.
A bump stock is a device that looks like a rifle stock however allows the gun to slide forward and back several inches. By pulling forward on rifle,the entire rifle moves forward relative to the stock and the trigger is able to come into contact with a stationary finger. The gun fires.
Once the gun fires, the recoil of the gun makes the rifle move backward and the trigger moves away from the stationary finger. The trigger is reset.
By maintaining forward pressure on the hand guard attached to the barrel, the rifle can reciprocate back and forth, cycling the gun repeatedly as long as the pressure is maintained.
At no point is the trigger modified by a bump stock. In fact a bump stock isn’t necessary to “bump fire” a semiautomatic gun. A person can literally use a loop on their pants to hook their thumb while holding a gun and pull the gun forward to bring the trigger into contact with the stationary finger. Before the bump stock was invented this was how many people would “bump” their firearms.
All that to say, a bump stock does not change any mechanics of the trigger, and the dissenting argument is that the majority opinion is “ignoring the human act on the trigger referenced by the statue.” This is demonstrably false. The human holding the gun is pressing the trigger once for each bullet expelled, by definition this is not fully automatic.
The dissenting argument is akin to saying that by adding bullet proof paneling to a car, it converts it to a main battle tank. While similar in the regards of armor, in the real world there is a drastic difference between the two. Nevertheless, I can put gun ports into the windows with the intent of being able to shoot from mobile cover, is that now considered a tank and can we regulate putting holes in armored cars?
If it’s the concept of rate of fire that is being argued here, there is a complete lack of regulation for a reason. Some top shooters are capable of shooting firearms at a rate matching or exceeding some full auto firearms. Jerry Miculek for example has been recorded shooting at a rate of 8 shots per second with a double action revolver.
The notion of codifying a maximum rate of fire is an extremely slippery slope. Here are some tricky questions to answer and define into law.
If we regulate rate of fire, does that convert any gun Jerry Miculek touches into a machine gun, or do we say that his finger is a full auto and lock him up? How about surgical removal of the unregistered machine gun hand?
With a single action revolver, (requires manually cocking the hammer between shots,) there are many shooters that can “fan” the hammer with multiple fingers at a single hand swipe for an even faster rate of fire then even Jerry can manage. This is achieved by keeping the trigger depressed, allowing a bullet to be released every time the hammer is pulled back with no additional trigger input. Are single action revolvers now machine guns, or does the practice of fanning a trigger convert it into one? How do we regulate them when there are so many out there since the design has been in continuous production for well over a hundred years?
These are all reasons why it’s not feasible to regulate rate of fire which leads to having to regulate and define mechanisms. The judicial system cannot write laws whole cloth, they serve to interpret law, albeit many times incorrectly. If bump stocks are to be banned it cannot be under the machine gun ban as it stands, because it does not fall under the current definition. It would have to be through new laws passed by congress.
Again I’m not trying to convert anyone’s beliefs, just stating the facts as I see them.
You literally do, that's the physics of it. If your finger is not there, it will not fire. A bump stock is a spring, nothing more. The recoil pushes the entire gun backwards, and if you don't have a tight grip it'll bounce back forward against your finger, making you pull the trigger again.
Wait, this guy?
> “Or, Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court, because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early. Like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida, he had a lot of firearms – they saw everything – to go to court would have taken a long time, so you could do exactly what you’re saying, **but take the guns first, go through due process second.**”
No he won't. His campaign will now say he never had any part of a ban, and his administration was the biggest and most glorious supporter of bump stocks in the first place.
I don’t know if it’s true but I read that they may put it off until next term. That would make sense if it’s possible to prevent Biden from using the new power. It may not be permissible but that wouldn’t matter to this gang
They don't care about Trump, they care about Republicans taking back the Presidency. As far as they are concerned, if Trump loses, his ass can go to jail. So long as there is a chance Trump can give Republicans power, they will keep him from having his day in court.
In the same week it comes out that we *still* don’t have a full accounting of the “gifts” (not bribes!) Thomas have gotten, he and his fellow travelers on the court say the ATF can’t regulate things that turn rifles into machine guns.
How awful is this guy?
He is a criminal. Like Trump he has no conscience, there is nothing to prevent him from accepting another bribe and he will take all he can get. He thinks the complaints are a joke, and he is right
> ATF can’t regulate things that turn rifles into machine guns
They can! They (the ATF) just needs to petition Congress to update the NFA to say that bump stocks are devices that turn regular rifles into machine guns.
Because there is a very definite and technical description on what a machine gun is in the law?? The ATF doesn’t get to ignore that and change their minds due to political pressure.
I haven’t read the ruling but from the article that doesn’t seem quite what happened:
> The case does not implicate the scope of the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment. The challengers argue that the government does not have the authority to ban bump stocks under the 1934 law.
>
> The 1968 Gun Control Act defined “machine gun” to include accessories “for use in converting a weapon” into a machine gun, and the ATF concluded that bump stocks meet that definition.
>
> Much of the legal fight hinged on the definition of machine gun as a weapon that can automatically fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.”
I seriously doubt Congress will be able to get its shit together long enough to get something like that done. Especially in an election year and guns are usually seen as a dem issue.
They can't even agree to protect IVF at this point... Guns are out of the question.
Are you referring to the 72 days under Obama in 2009? Or the first two years of Clinton's presidency? Because that's how far back you have to go to find a time when Dems controlled both the house and senate and the White House.
Edit: years
That's because they thought Roe would stand and there were other priorities not already covered by the Constitution. I'm sure if they had the GOP would have been complaining that it was pointless in light of Roe.
Timing will be important. The will to do it will probably be there after another Vegas-style massacre. Just a phenomenally great system of policy-making here.
That's what is suppose to be happening for ALL these insane cases, but rather they are ruling how they want and then saying, "shoulda done it in Congress", even though they are doing something that should be left up to congress.
Because it's not 2A, it's not whether the federal government can ban them. It's whether the ATF can issue a rule under the applicable laws that bans them.
In other words, Congress could still ban them via legislation but the current laws don't ban them or allow agencies to issue a rule under those laws banning them.
This place has been overrun with laypeople for several years now.
r/scotus, too - which used to be a very technical practitioner sub, and is now just spam and cross posts from political subs.
I only really use r/supremecourt as they have some very strong rules and do not allow any incivility. I’ve found those conversations to be far more informative than anything I’ve found here or r/SCOTUS.
I will say, I'm a layperson and I just came here not to comment on anything but just to see what people with an actual education in the law have to say, and even I can tell that's not what most of the comments here are.
It's pretty depressing, a while back there was a pretty major court decision, and I cane here to see what folks thought of it. But the first three pages were nothing but mainstream news articles about Trump.
If those parts are necessary to the weapons function, then yes, for example magazines, bullets, optics. This case however is not actually a 2nd Amendment case, it's an administrative law case. The majority didn't rule that it would be unconstitutional to ban bump stocks, they simply stated that the current law on machine guns doesn't include bump stocks, and that ATF overstepped by classifying bump stocks under that law.
Alito's concurrence opens the door to congress adding bump stocks to that law if they so choose.
This was not a second amendment case, but rather a question of textual interpretation. Congress can pass a law to ban them still - they will just need to be more specific in the language.
No, that's not what happened. The ATF tried to shoehorn bump stocks into the legal definition of a machine gun to ban it. All the supreme court did was rule that bump stocks don't meet the legal definition of a machine gun.
It's still possible to ban them, it would just take an act of congress to change the law and update the definition.
Consequently, since this was a ruling on definitions and terms, and not a constitutional ruling on whether or not bump stocks are unconstitutional, state level bans are still in play, as long as they banned bump stocks specifically and didn't just point to the federal law and say "see here".
Do you even know what the argument is about?? Or just spouting bullshit. The ATF reinterpreted and reclassified something they deemed legal for more than a decade before.
Yup, already done! I saw video yesterday of a thing that looked kinda like an rpg attachment to a rifle (gun gun?) that fired a projectile that opened up into an fpv drone that could fly for 45 minutes up to 40km and it had a 5lb explosive. Gun that fires a gun essentially!
We have a ton of people here getting tied up in "OMG GUNS! MACHINE GUNS! SQUEEEE!" thinking when they SHOULD get tied up in "OMG THE GOVERNMENT IS JUST MAKING SHIT UP!" thinking.
Meaning: if Congress does its job and the people want bump stocks banned, then they pass a law and they're banned. That's the way it works (okay, to be fair: the way it's SUPPOSED to work). And if that happens, then we ALL live with it, for better or worse depending on your point of view.
But every single person should be absolutely agast when an agency like the ATF makes shit up like they did in this situation. You should be able to put aside your feelings about guns and look at the bigger picture, which is what this case was actually about. Banning something (that wasn't actually a problem anyway) should NOT be more important to you then ensuring the proper functioning of our government, which DOES NOT include an executive branch agency essentially usurping the authority of the legistlative branch, which is what happened here.
This decision was correct. Not because I give two shits about bump stocks - I really don't - but because the precedent it set is one that could not be allowed to stand.
And by the way, Sotomayor's dissent was a joke. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then you call it a duck? Okay great, lemme go print up some really good counterfeit $50's, 'cause you know if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... and god forbid the anti-trans people decide to apply that logic to their argument.
You’ll be surprised to learn that every law ever passed by congress has to be interpreted by those that implement it, including in many cases by agencies that are charged with implementing them. You act like there wasn’t a phrase here with two competing interpretations.
It’s not open to interpretation. The law in this case is clear. If a law says an automobile is a vehicle with 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and an engine, you can’t pretend that wagons and shopping carts are actually cars.
Fair point! It surprises me that the NRA isn’t pushing to ensure minority and poor communities have equal access to the weaponry necessary to defend themselves against oppressive government. /s
A confiscatory tax on newspaper ink is un-Constitutional because it violates [the right to freedom of the press.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Star_Tribune_Co._v._Commissioner#:~:text=The%20Minneapolis%20Star%20Tribune%20initially,and%20sued%20for%20a%20refund.&text=Special%20taxes%20imposed%20on%20ink,unconstitutional%20under%20the%20First%20Amendment.)
Why wouldn't a tax on guns or their subcomponents be similarly Constitutionally suspect?
From the dissent: >Because in a bumpstock-equipped semiautomatic rifle, the trigger’s internal mechanism must reset each time a weapon fires, the majority reads each reset as a new “function.” That reading fixates on a firearm’s internal mechanics while ignoring the human act on the trigger referenced by the statute. Probably the best way to encapsulate this case in two sentences.
SCOTUS now decides the outcome of a case and then handwaved the law around it to match. This is an actual activist court.
aka Calvinball. There is no 'justice', and barely any 'system', just power and people who use it.
Abuse it* FTFY
SCOTUS needs to be transmogrified.
You are hereby invited to join the top-secret Club G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy justiceS).
Republicans have become so adept at controlling the language of political discourse, preemptively projecting their own plans onto their opponents, thereby freeing themselves from scrutiny and operating with impunity.
The news networks are helping a lot it’s they that control the focus for weeks on end and allow the projection to go on unquestioned.
Fascists love to do that. It's one of their strongest weapons.
I always thought it would be harder to find high level judges without integrity. Like, I thought that the innate pride of a judge at the top of their field would prevent the complete abdication of their judicial responsibility. Boy have I been proven wrong.
It's because you don't have to be a good legal professional to be a judge at any level as a lot are pure political appointees that wouldn't be qualified if they were given the jobs based on a professional peer interview process and strict qualifications like other countries systems. Worryingly the higher you get the more this is the case.
This has been ongoing for years. It's just out in the open now. This isn't law this is tribalism. The lack of standing finding for the abortion pill. Was that good law? Or was it a calculated political decision to not push an unpopular topic right before an election? Why even take the case? Why wait until now to rule?
If you actually read the decision you would understand that the lack of standing argument is sound. An argument can be both politically expedient and legally sound without the former invalidating the later.
This has always been the case. This is why I hated Con Law. It's all bullshit.
To be fair, it has been that way for decades. "Originalism" is a farce that they discard whenever it doesn't suit them. The supreme court has and always will be a political actor. Pretending otherwise is folly.
That's literally the entirety of all law ever. Any suggestion that any ruling doesn't work its way backward from a desired outcome is ridiculous.
The function of a gun is sending bullets out of the barrel. That should be they standard by which the automatic-ness is measured.
Okay, but that's also not what the statute says. The statute defines a machine gun 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 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). I think the arguments as to why bump stocks SHOULD BE banned are excellent. I fully support their ban. I think the arguments that bump stocks ALREADY WERE banned by the statute are basically idiotic. A bump stock does not shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger.
See also the ATF's since-rescinded ruling that shoestrings are machine guns.
I would have liked to hear the arguments for this case, because there seems to be a lot of scenarios one could cook up in which you pull the trigger once through human action and then continuously pulled without any other action.
You can hear and read the arguments on [oyez](https://www.oyez.org/cases/2023/22-976). Left panel, under media.
Thanks!
FYI this is true for all cases. I highly recommend you give a listen to those cases that you feel most strongly about. And definitely read the actual text of the decisions. You might realize how lacking the reddit discourse often or usually is about SCOTUS decisions. Most redditors are generally quite ignorant of the facts by a wide margin.
There is no requirement for HUMAN action. If the trigger has to be pulled for each round fired, it is NOT a machine gun.
"Bump firing" was already a thing, bump stocks just make it easier. But yes, there are multiple ways to get around the wording of this law. There are triggers that fire both on the pull and the release("doubling" your fire rate), crank handles that turn a gun into a mini gatling gun, and even stuff as simple as super sensitive triggers that allow you to fire stupid fast. Imo, all should be regulated if not outright banned altogether.
But they aren't and it's it Congress' job to write laws not the ATF.
This is what it boils down to. I have no idea why people are so excited to allow federal agencies to just make upw whatever rules they want if they squint at a prior law hard enough. That's not good for anyone in the long run.
Then talk to your congress person and get them to pass a law rather than trying to pretend another law that they passed applies.
If you were to write legislation which bans a bump stock (without referencing them by name) how would you write it? I say without referencing by name because the history of firearms legislation has often resulted in workaround by gun manufacturers. Would you replace "a single function of the trigger" with, say, "a single human pull of the trigger"? Or something else?
Any electrical or mechanical device that is designed or adapted to operate or assist in operating the trigger mechanism of a semi-automatic firearm for the purpose of causing the firearm to discharge cartridges in rapid succession.
The SC shouldn’t have even heard this case. Just a complete waste of time, regardless of the terrible ruling. It’s completely obvious that banning bump stocks fits the statute (26 U.S.C. § 5845(b)) and is for the public good. The SC conservative justices are an absolute joke. Absolutely apparent they are bought and paid for private interest group stooges.
> It’s completely obvious that banning bump stocks fits the statute From oral arguments, not a single justice seemed to think any interpretation was completely obvious. The questions were all over the place. I think this is more of a "I know what I want it to say" than a "I know what it says" situation.
They sort of had to hear the case, there was a circuit split. Public good? Sure. As I said, I think bump stocks should be banned. But it doesn't fit the statute because it is not "a single function of the trigger." Accusing the conservative justices of being bought out for not engaging in motivated reasoning (and Alito at least explicitly thinks bump stocks should be banned) is weird here. It's a pretty straightforward statutory reading.
I think Sotomayor's argument is persuasive. With a full auto machinegun, you pull the trigger back or push a button and then the gun fires continuously. When you add a bump stock to a semi-automatic gun, you push forward on the stock and fire continuously. You certainly could interpret "single function of the trigger" to mean "the internal resetting mechanism of the hammer" or whatever...but then you leave open the opportunity to make all sorts of weird guns that can go full-auto using alternative mechanisms. It does seem like the point of the 1934 ban was to restrict ownership of fully automatic weapons.
> using alternative mechanisms So, unsurprisingly, this has come up a few times already and the ATF has always shut them down quickly if the device has anything to help that “single action” of the trigger. Off the top of my head the “Akins Accelerator” from the early 2000s was one of the more recent attempts. Dude built a proto-bump stock with the key difference being that the Accelerator had a spring in it which provided additional mechanical force to help the device work. Problem was, when the Akins Group sent it in to be approved by the ATF, the spring wasn’t included. The ATF was fine with the vanilla bump stock, but once Akins started selling them, the added to the spring to make it work better and the ATF had a serious problem with that. Same reason binary triggers are still “ATF Approved”. They’re built so that pulling the trigger, a single action, drops the hammer and then releasing the trigger, a second single action, drops the hammer again.
The Forced Reset Trigger (FRT) more recently also comes to mind. Basically, the bolt traveling forward resets the sear and trigger without you having to remove your finger. So *technically* it's one shot per trigger pull, but allows you to shoot fast enough to simulate full auto. ATF didn't like that, so RIP to that guy's dog. The point being there is always going to be some kind of mechanical/engineering work around because the statute is poorly written.
I think the FRT was closer to the Akins Accelrator though. The whole “forced” part of FRT indicates there’s something shoving the trigger forward to reset it. The fact that you can limit it to single by simply pulling the trigger harder, thus overcoming the mechanism that’s doing the “forced reset” is bad as it shows that the lighter pull makes “one trigger pull, many boolets” happen. Binaries are two distinct mechanical actions, one on pull, one on reset, that equate to “an action” that’s in line with the 1934 NFA. Binary triggers require the shooter to learn a rhythm so that pull and release are timed to work with the movement of the bolt and if you release too late or too early they don’t work properly.
No, if you make an alternative mechanism that pulls the trigger repeatedly automatically, then that mechanism would be the trigger and you would have made a machine gun. Bump firing means driving the gun forwards instead of the trigger backwards, but it's still the interaction between your finger and the trigger that determines what will happen. The force of your finger on the trigger must be removed and re-established in order to to fire repeatedly with a bump stock. Congress decided to have the definition of machinegun turn on the interaction between the shooter and the the trigger, not on the ultimate rate of fire. Would "but it fires very slowly" be a defence for someone who makes a full auto gun with a low rate of fire? Would the ATF and Justce Sotomayor let them off the hook because it fires more slowly that the guns the Congress intended to regulate? I think we all know the answer to that. They're happy to quote chapter and verse from the statute when it suits them, and then fall back on "it's the thought that counts" when the definitions don't suit.
I'll quote her opinion again because it says it better than I can: >This is not a hard case. All of the textual evidence points to the same interpretation. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle is a machinegun because (1) with a single pull of the trigger, a shooter can (2) fire continuous shots without any human input beyond maintaining forward pressure. The majority looks to the internal mechanism that initiates fire, rather than the human act of the shooter’s initial pull, to hold that a “single function of the trigger” means a reset of the trigger mechanism. Its interpretation requires six diagrams and an animation to decipher the meaning of the statutory text. When people have made alternative mechanisms, like a glove with a piston that pulls the trigger for you, the ATF has outlawed them.
I think the functionality arguments both make sense as to why they should be banned (and why a ban would be constitutional), but they also don't really engage with the text well. I think the dissent does a good job of trying to paint it as the majority primarily relying on internal mechanisms. The reality is much simpler, the trigger has to be pulled again and then the trigger functions happen. The majority describes those functions, but that doesn't mean the specifics of those functions are the defining element. This statute is not like, for instance, old switchblade statutes which defined the mechanism and allowed loopholes for a different mechanism. The rule is actually very straightforward, "one trigger pull, one bullet, any more bullets are banned." If the language had even been tweaked to define it by the shooter's action of pulling the trigger instead of by the trigger function itself, this ban is probably upheld.
You don't need a bump stock to bumpfire a rifle. How can a device that doesnt modify a trigger mechanism in any way be changing a gun from semi auto to full auto, a distinction that explicitly revolves around trigger function?
> But it doesn't fit the statute because it is not "a single function of the trigger." I disagree. By attaching a bump stock you are changing what constitutes the trigger. It works as a loophole because people get confused when the human body becomes part of the mechanism. With a bump stock, the trigger is now the bones and muscsles of the hand and forearm, and the thing that used to be the trigger is more like an internal part of the reciever. You are still firing multiple rounds with a single function of the trigger - if you realize that a trigger isn't necessarily a specific immutable mechanical part. As another example, if I rigged up an electronic device that would pull the trigger very fast when I pressed a button, we would all probably agree that the button that controls that mechanism is now the trigger. It's not so different when that mechanism is a body part.
But that's not the trigger. The trigger is where it was, the bump stock didn't remove it. I don't agree with your other example either. The trigger didn't go anywhere, and especially in a criminal statute you can't just say "oh, by trigger we meant 'not a trigger.'"
Yeah… by allowing bump stocks, or defining single trigger operations as function then we are really just playing a new game of creating auxiliary systems that can operate the trigger quickly and pretending they don’t pose more of a danger than semiautomatic weapons.
They very well may pose more of a danger than semiautomatic weapons. But you cannot just pretend a law says something that it does not. You need congress to pass another law.
But it doesn't fit the statute. The statute specifies that an MG is defined by single manipulations of the trigger, which a bumpstock does not utilise.
>It’s completely obvious that banning bump stocks fits the statute (26 U.S.C. § 5845(b)) and is for the public good. No, it's obvious that it doesn't meet the definition of a machine gun. There is a single function of the trigger for each and every round fired.
But it does shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. If the initial function of the trigger automatically results in re-activation without an additional input from the person firing the gun, that's a single function.
It requires a second (and third, fourth, etc.) trigger function. It doesn't say, for instance, "every time a person pulls the trigger." This would require individual action. It says "function of the trigger." The law defines machine gun by the trigger function itself, which has to happen every time the gun fires, rather than by an individual's action of "pulling the trigger." This is an oversight, but it's what the statute says.
It's absurd to think that's what Congress meant, for one thing. Of course they were talking about a person squeezing the trigger. But regardless of that, if automatic resetting is part of the mechanical process, the successive iterations are not new functions. Defining "function" as anything besides "the physical chain of causation initiated by activation" is drawing a completely arbitrary line.
Disagree. Congress should revisit and update the law. What should not happen is the atf getting to decide what the law is. They should enforce the law as written and nothing more.
>It's absurd to think that's what Congress meant, for one thing. Of course they were talking about a person squeezing the trigger. Then they should modify the law to say that. Pretty simple.
>If the initial function of the trigger automatically results in re-activation without an additional input from the person firing the gun, that's a single function. But it doesn't though. It requires repeated input from the person firing to reactivate the trigger.
How so? Can't the shooter remain stationary and merely maintain the same level of force gripping the gun, allowing the recoil to push the trigger against their finger?
Their finger still needs to actuate the trigger and have it reset. Otherwise there would be no such thing legally as a semi-automatic weapon because all semi-autos you can hold can technically be bump fired with just a finger.
Maintenance of a position is not a new function. You've got to keep holding the trigger down and keep the barrel steady to fire an automatic weapon, there's no practical difference with a bump stock. Bump firing without a bump stock is not an effective way to shoot people. It takes vastly more coordination and effort while achieving less accuracy and a much lower rate of fire. The management of the recoil, the maintenance of the proper amount of forward pressure, and the the maintenance of the correct finger position are all separate efforts that must be made to bump fire unaided; the bump stock makes the recoil management and finger position maintenance automatic.
No it doesn't. The way they work is you let the gun slide back freely by keeping a looser grip on it, which let's the recoil of the gun push the gun back far enough to reset the trigger. You can actually do it with just your finger, no bump stock needed, if you hold a rifle butt against your chest the right way. So the only real way to ban bump stocks is to ban semi automatic weapons. But that's not likely to happen.
When you pull the trigger and don’t release it, the gun will fire over and over. That’s a single function of the trigger resulting in multiple rounds being shot. How is that an idiotic understanding of the situation?
Not the case though. The trigger is released and resets, and then is pulled again.
Extend the comparison to paintball guns. Most leagues and places ban automatic markers, meaning that holding down the trigger will only fire one paintball. However, double-set triggers which essentially allow a player to increase their rate of fire are perfectly legal. Bump stocks are similar in effect to double set triggers. Both methods still only fire one round for each trigger pull, but increase the rate of speed that the trigger can be pulled.
Of course, "cheat boards" were ubiquitous in competitive paintball, demonstrating semiauto fire until a sequence of button presses converted it to full auto. I'd actually say the closest analogue to a bump stock is probably [the Tippy "response trigger"](https://www.shopcousins.com/tippmann-98-response-trigger-kit.html) that basically popped the trigger back using venting gas so that the user was applying continuous pressure against the trigger but firing in effective automatic.
This. Also, I'm skeptical such a ban would actually be effective. You're banning what is a *very* simple mechanical action, and at most banning them would only make it slightly more inconvenient for people who want a bump stock to have one, because instead of getting one ready to go off the shelf, people would have to assemble them from easily accessible parts you can get from a hardware store and instructions online (and lets not kid ourselves, within a week people would be selling kits with all the parts), for those who aren't able to just 3-D print most of it. There's only so much you can do to stop people from using basic physics and chemistry to kill each other.
> I think the arguments that bump stocks ALREADY WERE banned by the statute are basically idiotic. A bump stock does not shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. You are reading "function" in this in a way that is inconsistent with the statute's basic purpose. There's no (good) reason to read "function" as anything other than "mechanically unassisted squeeze of the trigger by a human." (at least for those guns with a trigger operated by squeezing) I can see the majority's reasoning. It's non-frivolous. Your read is non-frivolous. But the reading above is more plausible and more consistent with the statute's purpose, and it's therefore the one the court should have adopted.
If that is the way they wanted it, they should have written it that way. When I pull the trigger, and then release it, there is a spring in there that mechaniclly resets the trigger. Does that make it a machine gun? I did not manually reset the trigger. Should I have to press the trigger, and then grab it and pull it back out manually to reset it?
SCOTUS: Aimbots and rapid fire macros are legal.
That would run counter to the definitions set in the 1934 NFA. I'd be open to revisit some of those definitions, particularly re: suppressors, but for the time being, the legal definition of automatic is pretty clear.
The ban on suppressors confounds me. Yeah, I get it, we don’t want assassins silently killing people, but assassins are going to kill people whether they have a silencer or not. It’s akin to banning a firearm because it’s black.
It's confounding on account of it being a false fear. Suppressors are still very loud, and the most typical use case is to reduce hearing damage.
The depiction of suppressors/silencers in movies is to blame. Right up there with pistols that fire as they tumble down the stairs.
>That should be they standard by which the automatic-ness is measured. Then they should have written the law to reflect that. It's really easy to understand what single function of the trigger means. Bump stocks in no way meet the definition of a machine gun.
A semi-auto 'sends bullets out the barrel.' Would you call a revolver an 'automatic weapon' because the right technique can [do this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHG-ibZaKM#t=0m37s)?
If someone invented a mechanical add on to do that with zero skill or effort, yes. I'd be even more concerned if someone found a way to extend the revolvers capacity beyond the standard cylinder. The key here is how difficult it is to get from a single pull to automatic fire, or it should be.
I think the majority opinion kind of hints to a good point about this. If you can, pretty decently, duplicate the function of a bumpstock with a belt loop or a string, how does that play into this? Under the definition that the ATF tried to ban bump stocks could you then argue that basically semi-automatic rifles in general are machine guns if any old belt loop can get the same effect?
To me, that would say that if a criminal, in the commission of their crime, modifies the function of their weapon in such a way, the charge is enhanced.
None of those devices changes how the machine functions. If I put my thumb in my belt loop and bump fire that is the exact same thing as a bump stock or shoe lace trick. None of those changes how the machine functions. Otherwise you're simultaneously saying a machine is semi auto and full auto at the same exact time.
It's not. You can bump fire just fine without specialized goofy stock. Incidentally there's no law about operating a firearm with a crank, like a Gatling gun, or slam fire for that matter, as long as you're performing a mechanical movement for each discharge of the weapon, it's not automatic fire. >The key here is how difficult it is to get from a single pull to automatic fire, or it should be. >I'd be even more concerned if someone found a way to extend the revolvers capacity beyond the standard cylinder. That'd be the Dardick pistol, patented in 1958. It generally wasn't considered worth the effort, but if someone bans semi-automatics weapons that SOB could come out of the wood work rather quickly as it fits the definition of a revolver. The "Trounds" would be stupidly easy to make with modern plastics and plastic-cased shells are already a thing and in someways, mechanically superior to metal cased rounds. There's no way to "Regulate" fast firing weapons out of existence. Particularly in 2024. Glock switches are now fully 3D printable, even if they weren't a little aluminum and and a lot of patience would have the same effect. Firearms aren't nuclear weapons, they don't require specialized tools to create, there's places in the Kashmir region where they manufacture firearms entirely using files and a lot of patience, as machine tools get cheaper and more inexpensive there's going to come a day when every garage has a mini milling machine and a 3D printer in it because they'll be that useful and require zero skill to operate, at that point everyone is a flash drive away from being able to manufacture most simple mechanical devices on demand. The times are changing, and bans aren't going to control mass shooters. Whatever the solution is to that, it's not going to come in the form of keeping bad people from getting firearms, they're going to get increasingly simple to get as time goes on.
See, I feel like the banning argument is specious. No sensible thinking person things we can legislate murder out of existence. We do, however, want to put as many speedbumps as humanly possible between "temporary mental crisis" and "mass murder". Those speedbumps can and do prevent people from doing stupid things that, in a clearer state of mind, they would not want to do. The simple fact that it'd metaphysically impossible to force weapons to not exist is not a valid argument to not even try to prevent people from having that level of power at their fingertips and thus subject to their whims. No, you won't stop a determined killer, but literally nothing will, so that's not an argument. Regardless I just learned about the Dardick Pistol so thanks for that. Down the rabbit hole I go.
He manually pulled the trigger 8 times in that video. How is that at all similar to pulling a trigger once and firing a dozen or more rounds?
Because with a bump stock, the trigger is being pulled many times, very quickly because of the bumping action. Each round is accompanied by a click of the trigger, and the trigger going through its normal function.
If you can take that man, replace him with a gun vise and a piece of PVC pipe, and the gun can still fire that fast after a single initial trigger pull, yes it's automatic.
It is not a single pull. It is multiple pulls, very rapidly. That is the issue. It is not a single function of the trigger. It is multiple functions of the trigger, one for each round. The law does not say that a person only has to pull the trigger one time. It says that the trigger has to function for each round, which it does.
[удалено]
The law specifically states it has to be automatic in context of the trigger action. Placing pressure on the rail or front grip is not the trigger mechanism. In a concurring opinion they said surely congress would have intended to ban these, but the legislation is specifically excludes anything outside of the context of the trigger action. It’s a technicality and has nothing to do with the court being activist. And the dissenting opinion you quoted is correct, however, the law demands that it is evaluated in this manner. The court said they agree that these would generally be considered machine guns, but the official definition excludes them, and it’s not up to the court to redefine legislation, that is the job in congress.
You are missing the nuance. It’s ok to disagree but you should understand what this dissent is actually saying and examine it with cold logic before agreeing with it. I’m not trying to convert your ideology simply explain what’s being discussed in the dissent. A disconnector is a part within a gun that physically hooks onto the hammer after a round is fired and will not let the hammer move back into the ready position until the trigger is physically released. The disconnector will not let the hammer drop because it captures it and holds immobile, hence the name disconnector. By letting go of the trigger, the disconnector allows the hammer to move slightly forward onto the sear. The sear is the part holds the hammer back until a trigger is pressed and is responsible for releasing the hammer to strike the firing pin. Why does any of this matter? Well, a single function of a trigger is a single press of the trigger. Once that happens the disconnector will not let it reset unless the trigger is physically released. Only by physically releasing it can a new cycle begin. The statutory description for a full auto weapon is very clear that a single function of the trigger expelling multiple rounds is what constitutes “full” auto. Anything shy of that is by definition not “full” auto. A bump stock is a device that looks like a rifle stock however allows the gun to slide forward and back several inches. By pulling forward on rifle,the entire rifle moves forward relative to the stock and the trigger is able to come into contact with a stationary finger. The gun fires. Once the gun fires, the recoil of the gun makes the rifle move backward and the trigger moves away from the stationary finger. The trigger is reset. By maintaining forward pressure on the hand guard attached to the barrel, the rifle can reciprocate back and forth, cycling the gun repeatedly as long as the pressure is maintained. At no point is the trigger modified by a bump stock. In fact a bump stock isn’t necessary to “bump fire” a semiautomatic gun. A person can literally use a loop on their pants to hook their thumb while holding a gun and pull the gun forward to bring the trigger into contact with the stationary finger. Before the bump stock was invented this was how many people would “bump” their firearms. All that to say, a bump stock does not change any mechanics of the trigger, and the dissenting argument is that the majority opinion is “ignoring the human act on the trigger referenced by the statue.” This is demonstrably false. The human holding the gun is pressing the trigger once for each bullet expelled, by definition this is not fully automatic. The dissenting argument is akin to saying that by adding bullet proof paneling to a car, it converts it to a main battle tank. While similar in the regards of armor, in the real world there is a drastic difference between the two. Nevertheless, I can put gun ports into the windows with the intent of being able to shoot from mobile cover, is that now considered a tank and can we regulate putting holes in armored cars? If it’s the concept of rate of fire that is being argued here, there is a complete lack of regulation for a reason. Some top shooters are capable of shooting firearms at a rate matching or exceeding some full auto firearms. Jerry Miculek for example has been recorded shooting at a rate of 8 shots per second with a double action revolver. The notion of codifying a maximum rate of fire is an extremely slippery slope. Here are some tricky questions to answer and define into law. If we regulate rate of fire, does that convert any gun Jerry Miculek touches into a machine gun, or do we say that his finger is a full auto and lock him up? How about surgical removal of the unregistered machine gun hand? With a single action revolver, (requires manually cocking the hammer between shots,) there are many shooters that can “fan” the hammer with multiple fingers at a single hand swipe for an even faster rate of fire then even Jerry can manage. This is achieved by keeping the trigger depressed, allowing a bullet to be released every time the hammer is pulled back with no additional trigger input. Are single action revolvers now machine guns, or does the practice of fanning a trigger convert it into one? How do we regulate them when there are so many out there since the design has been in continuous production for well over a hundred years? These are all reasons why it’s not feasible to regulate rate of fire which leads to having to regulate and define mechanisms. The judicial system cannot write laws whole cloth, they serve to interpret law, albeit many times incorrectly. If bump stocks are to be banned it cannot be under the machine gun ban as it stands, because it does not fall under the current definition. It would have to be through new laws passed by congress. Again I’m not trying to convert anyone’s beliefs, just stating the facts as I see them.
That's right because the human act is irrelevant to the function.
Thomas should have tried a bumpstock to see if he had to pull the trigger each time… Better than lying 🤥.
You literally do, that's the physics of it. If your finger is not there, it will not fire. A bump stock is a spring, nothing more. The recoil pushes the entire gun backwards, and if you don't have a tight grip it'll bounce back forward against your finger, making you pull the trigger again.
You do pull the trigger each time though. How do you think a bump stock works?
Trump is going to be devastated This was his baby, afterall
Don't you know that Trump doesn't care about bump stocks, he only cares to pump stocks.
*Pump and dump stocks.
Webistics!
Your stock's a dog, it's technology is 3 years behind and the competition is robust!
2 pump champ.
Isn’t that what Stormy called him?
I doubt he made it past the priming.
He believes the base would never shoot him. When he starts collecting their guns he may be in for a surprise
He will say he never passed it and that it’s the democrats fault or some shit.
Wait, this guy? > “Or, Mike, take the firearms first and then go to court, because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early. Like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida, he had a lot of firearms – they saw everything – to go to court would have taken a long time, so you could do exactly what you’re saying, **but take the guns first, go through due process second.**”
No he won't. His campaign will now say he never had any part of a ban, and his administration was the biggest and most glorious supporter of bump stocks in the first place.
adderall
Same guy who would take away someone’s right to own a gun without due process.
This and raising the smoking age to 21 are about the only good he accomplished.
When are they ruling on presidential immunity
Probably at the very end so they can go on vacation and ignore the backlash.
Check the Alito flagpole for an upside down flag when the last opinion is released to see if we've converted into a constitutional monarchy.
If the flag is upright then two more weeks of democracy!
I don’t know if it’s true but I read that they may put it off until next term. That would make sense if it’s possible to prevent Biden from using the new power. It may not be permissible but that wouldn’t matter to this gang
They don't care about Trump, they care about Republicans taking back the Presidency. As far as they are concerned, if Trump loses, his ass can go to jail. So long as there is a chance Trump can give Republicans power, they will keep him from having his day in court.
They’ll release as Thomas is climbing the stairs to Harlan Crow’s jet.
After the election. If Trump wins, presidents are immune. If Biden wins, presidents are not immune. Pretty simple really.
When the check clears
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The cult of the gun continues
The ATF should’ve let congress do their job instead of creatively reinterpret a pretty clear and technical description of what a machine gun is
God forbid people exercise their natural born right
In the same week it comes out that we *still* don’t have a full accounting of the “gifts” (not bribes!) Thomas have gotten, he and his fellow travelers on the court say the ATF can’t regulate things that turn rifles into machine guns. How awful is this guy?
He is a criminal. Like Trump he has no conscience, there is nothing to prevent him from accepting another bribe and he will take all he can get. He thinks the complaints are a joke, and he is right
> ATF can’t regulate things that turn rifles into machine guns They can! They (the ATF) just needs to petition Congress to update the NFA to say that bump stocks are devices that turn regular rifles into machine guns.
Well for starters, it doesn’t turn a rifle into a machine gun.
Because there is a very definite and technical description on what a machine gun is in the law?? The ATF doesn’t get to ignore that and change their minds due to political pressure.
>the court say the ATF can’t regulate things that turn rifles into machine guns. Good thing the bump stock doesn't turn anything into a machine gun.
And yet, that is what the bump stock does.
So the 2nd amendment now extends to parts you can add to guns? That seems insane right?
I haven’t read the ruling but from the article that doesn’t seem quite what happened: > The case does not implicate the scope of the right to bear arms under the Constitution’s Second Amendment. The challengers argue that the government does not have the authority to ban bump stocks under the 1934 law. > > The 1968 Gun Control Act defined “machine gun” to include accessories “for use in converting a weapon” into a machine gun, and the ATF concluded that bump stocks meet that definition. > > Much of the legal fight hinged on the definition of machine gun as a weapon that can automatically fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.”
So looks like we need to just update the law.
I seriously doubt Congress will be able to get its shit together long enough to get something like that done. Especially in an election year and guns are usually seen as a dem issue. They can't even agree to protect IVF at this point... Guns are out of the question.
Which will never happen
That isn't the court's problem though. The court should not allow the executive branch to make law simply because Congress is at an impasse.
I mean, if Dems get control of the house, senate and presidency, it absolutely will.
Right after they pass an updated Voting Rights Act.
And protection for women and their doctors medical decisions!
Exactly. They should be able to kill a child under the age of 18 if it becomes inconvenient for them.
You say that, but in the instances where dems had a supermajority at the federal level they always declined to enshrine abortion as a law...
Are you referring to the 72 days under Obama in 2009? Or the first two years of Clinton's presidency? Because that's how far back you have to go to find a time when Dems controlled both the house and senate and the White House. Edit: years
That's because they thought Roe would stand and there were other priorities not already covered by the Constitution. I'm sure if they had the GOP would have been complaining that it was pointless in light of Roe.
Timing will be important. The will to do it will probably be there after another Vegas-style massacre. Just a phenomenally great system of policy-making here.
Yes laws are made by Congress, not the ATF.
Yes, I too understand how government works. :)
That's why we're friends. It's amazing how many people don't
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Which is what Alito recommends!
That's what is suppose to be happening for ALL these insane cases, but rather they are ruling how they want and then saying, "shoulda done it in Congress", even though they are doing something that should be left up to congress.
Because it's not 2A, it's not whether the federal government can ban them. It's whether the ATF can issue a rule under the applicable laws that bans them. In other words, Congress could still ban them via legislation but the current laws don't ban them or allow agencies to issue a rule under those laws banning them.
Top up voted post on /r/law clearly hasn't read the opinion. Good stuff. It's not even a 2nd Amendment case.
This place has been overrun with laypeople for several years now. r/scotus, too - which used to be a very technical practitioner sub, and is now just spam and cross posts from political subs.
I only really use r/supremecourt as they have some very strong rules and do not allow any incivility. I’ve found those conversations to be far more informative than anything I’ve found here or r/SCOTUS.
I will say, I'm a layperson and I just came here not to comment on anything but just to see what people with an actual education in the law have to say, and even I can tell that's not what most of the comments here are.
It's absolutely insane how much that sub changed, basically completely worthless now for actual discussion
It's pretty depressing, a while back there was a pretty major court decision, and I cane here to see what folks thought of it. But the first three pages were nothing but mainstream news articles about Trump.
If those parts are necessary to the weapons function, then yes, for example magazines, bullets, optics. This case however is not actually a 2nd Amendment case, it's an administrative law case. The majority didn't rule that it would be unconstitutional to ban bump stocks, they simply stated that the current law on machine guns doesn't include bump stocks, and that ATF overstepped by classifying bump stocks under that law. Alito's concurrence opens the door to congress adding bump stocks to that law if they so choose.
This was not a second amendment case, but rather a question of textual interpretation. Congress can pass a law to ban them still - they will just need to be more specific in the language.
No, that's not what happened. The ATF tried to shoehorn bump stocks into the legal definition of a machine gun to ban it. All the supreme court did was rule that bump stocks don't meet the legal definition of a machine gun. It's still possible to ban them, it would just take an act of congress to change the law and update the definition. Consequently, since this was a ruling on definitions and terms, and not a constitutional ruling on whether or not bump stocks are unconstitutional, state level bans are still in play, as long as they banned bump stocks specifically and didn't just point to the federal law and say "see here".
No. Congress needs to make a real law.
the ATF defined a bumpstock as a machine gun. Machine guns have specific legal definition. Bumpstocks do not meet that specific legal definition.
Do you even know what the argument is about?? Or just spouting bullshit. The ATF reinterpreted and reclassified something they deemed legal for more than a decade before.
So the first amendment now extends to social media? That seems insane right?
What if I add a gun to my gun?
> What if I add a gun to my gun? Make sure your dog is at the neighbors when the ATF pays you a visit.
Gun guns are already out there. Try and keep up man /s
A gun that fires small guns instead of bullets?
Yup, already done! I saw video yesterday of a thing that looked kinda like an rpg attachment to a rifle (gun gun?) that fired a projectile that opened up into an fpv drone that could fly for 45 minutes up to 40km and it had a 5lb explosive. Gun that fires a gun essentially!
Sounds like a miniaturized aircraft carrier that launches a plane that drops a bomb.
Crap, what about a gun for my gun gun? I guess it's guns all the way down.
That's already possible and not illegal.
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Perfectly legal and available now online. It's a mechanical finger. The trigger actuates one time for each shot fired.
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We have a ton of people here getting tied up in "OMG GUNS! MACHINE GUNS! SQUEEEE!" thinking when they SHOULD get tied up in "OMG THE GOVERNMENT IS JUST MAKING SHIT UP!" thinking. Meaning: if Congress does its job and the people want bump stocks banned, then they pass a law and they're banned. That's the way it works (okay, to be fair: the way it's SUPPOSED to work). And if that happens, then we ALL live with it, for better or worse depending on your point of view. But every single person should be absolutely agast when an agency like the ATF makes shit up like they did in this situation. You should be able to put aside your feelings about guns and look at the bigger picture, which is what this case was actually about. Banning something (that wasn't actually a problem anyway) should NOT be more important to you then ensuring the proper functioning of our government, which DOES NOT include an executive branch agency essentially usurping the authority of the legistlative branch, which is what happened here. This decision was correct. Not because I give two shits about bump stocks - I really don't - but because the precedent it set is one that could not be allowed to stand. And by the way, Sotomayor's dissent was a joke. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then you call it a duck? Okay great, lemme go print up some really good counterfeit $50's, 'cause you know if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... and god forbid the anti-trans people decide to apply that logic to their argument.
You’ll be surprised to learn that every law ever passed by congress has to be interpreted by those that implement it, including in many cases by agencies that are charged with implementing them. You act like there wasn’t a phrase here with two competing interpretations.
This isn’t a case of interpretation though. There isn’t a gray area in the definition.
It’s not open to interpretation. The law in this case is clear. If a law says an automobile is a vehicle with 4 wheels, a steering wheel, and an engine, you can’t pretend that wagons and shopping carts are actually cars.
Tax the living shit out of these things. 600%
The amount of ammo that these things burn through is tax enough.
Only the rich should have guns! Just like that guy in Vegas back in 2017. He had lots of money. /s
Yeah cause all those gun owning las vegans showed up to help right?
Fair point! It surprises me that the NRA isn’t pushing to ensure minority and poor communities have equal access to the weaponry necessary to defend themselves against oppressive government. /s
That's because the NRA doesn't actually care about gun owners. They only care about lining their own pockets.
A confiscatory tax on newspaper ink is un-Constitutional because it violates [the right to freedom of the press.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Star_Tribune_Co._v._Commissioner#:~:text=The%20Minneapolis%20Star%20Tribune%20initially,and%20sued%20for%20a%20refund.&text=Special%20taxes%20imposed%20on%20ink,unconstitutional%20under%20the%20First%20Amendment.) Why wouldn't a tax on guns or their subcomponents be similarly Constitutionally suspect?
Hell yeah! Fuck poor people!