Bump Stock Ban Reversed by U.S. Appellate Court

Last week, a federal appellate court reversed the ATF’s decision to institute a bump stock ban and to classify bump stocks as machine guns, saying the agency exceeded its authority.

“A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act,” the court said in the Jan. 6 ruling.

The court’s 13-3 decision hinged on the legal principle “rule of lenity,” which says the court should rule in favor of the defendant when there are ambiguous details in the criminal statute. In the context of the argument, the defendant would be a person charged with unlawful possession of a machine gun for owning a bump stock.

“A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act.”
U.S. district judges in the majority opinion

Although the court reversed the ban and presumably deregulated bump stocks, there’s little to no guidance available about owning one. Currently, plaintiffs in the case are waiting for the Justice Department to either do nothing or appeal the ruling. If the DOJ appeals, the case could end up in front of the Supreme Court.

Bump stocks were designed to allow a semi-auto firearm to mimic full-auto fire. When attached to a rifle, the device bumps the firearm between the shooter’s shoulder and trigger finger so the trigger can be pulled at a higher rate. A machine gun, on the other hand, requires a trigger that, when held down, repeatedly cycles the firearm.

In the opinion, the court also explained that the government outlawed bump stocks by “administrative fiat” through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) even though the ATF, on multiple occasions, issued the opposite classification.

The court added that federal law “unambiguously does not” consider bump stocks to be machine guns, “but even if we are wrong, the statute is at least ambiguous in this regard. And if the statute is ambiguous, Congress must cure that ambiguity, not the federal courts.”

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The Bump Stock Classification

The decision was related to a 2019 case brought by Michael Cargill, a gun store owner in Austin, Texas. Cargill said the Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered him and thousands of others to destroy or surrender their bump stocks or face criminal prosecution. His attorneys argued the DOJ proceeded with that order without Congress changing federal law or offering compensation.

The rule change was directed by President Donald Trump, who was in office at the time, in response to a now-infamous and horrific concert shooting in Las Vegas. In October 2017, a gunman armed with 13 bump-stock equipped rifles and other weapons opened fire into an outdoor crowd from his hotel room, killing some 60 people and injuring more than 800 others.

Following the incident, there was mounting public and political pressure to reclassify bump stocks, which many believed were designed to avoid federal regulation and, therefore, should be banned.

Major gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation publicly supported Trump’s effort and blamed the ATF for not regulating bump stocks sooner, but they declined to say Congress should rewrite the statute.

Gun control-supporting Democrats, on the other hand, filed bills to amend the law to regulate bump stocks as machine guns in both the House and Senate, but the measures never advanced.

So after several years and rounds of examination, the ATF finally classified the bump stock as a machine gun after Trump directed his Justice Department to change its interpretation of the law.

The main reason the ATF declined the classification was that the bump stocks in question didn’t change the internal components of the firearm nor did they rely on mechanical parts. Additionally, some advocates have pointed out that shooters could rig a rifle to bump fire with something as simple as a belt loop.

Attorneys representing Cargill said the case was about “who has the constitutional prerogative to change the criminal law if changes are warranted.”

“It is unlawful for a prosecutorial entity like ATF to rewrite existing law without authorization from Congress,” said Rich Samp, senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), in a statement. “Any change in gun-control laws must emanate from Congress.”

But this doesn’t mean Americans can start selling and buying bump stocks again quite yet. With the split decision, the NCLA anticipates that the Justice Department will petition the Supreme Court to rule on the matter. The group is also currently representing other clients challenging the bump stock ban.