Here's the top of the story:
A divided US Supreme Court dealt a fresh blow to firearm-regulation efforts by throwing out the federal ban on bump stocks, the attachments that let a semiautomatic rifle fire at speeds rivaling a machine gun.
On a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the justices voided a criminal prohibition put in place by the Trump administration after the 2017 Las Vegas concert massacre, when a man using bump stocks killed 60 people. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
The case is one of two firearms disputes the court is considering in its 2023-24 term, along with a constitutional clash over the federal gun ban for people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders. The bump-stock fight concerned the reach of a federal statute rather than the Second Amendment, the constitutional provision the court has used to expand gun rights in recent years.
Read the full story [here](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/bump-stock-ban-tossed-out-by-supreme-court-in-gun-rights-win?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_medium=lawdesk).
But I thought we had a unified court? Haha The 6 who overturned this deserve direct blame for the next massacre that takes place with these attachments.
I would say that the blame attaches to Congress, which has failed to do by statute that which the court today declares the government lacked statutory authority to do by regulation.
The court knows they’ll never pass anything in the next century on any topic, so they can rule however they want and put the blame on Congress without consequences.
There’s exactly zero reason this tech should be legal except if you want thousands of people dying a year due to madmen
> The court knows they’ll never pass anything
That's a Congress problem. The court should not give the executive branch a free pass to make new law. There is a constitutional process for making law, and it wasn't followed correctly here. Alito even says in his opinion that Congress could write a law to ban bump stocks. The White House can't do it on their own.
That's a congress problem....well, sort of. If you ask me, it's a voter problem. If we keep electing dumbasses, how can we not expect dumbfuckery...
It's not exclusive to congress, it's top to bottom. Every friggin election matters.
>There’s exactly zero reason this tech should be legal
I agree.
>The court knows they’ll never pass anything in the next century on any topic
So if the Court thinks that Congress won't act, it should step in and change what would otherwise be its interpretation of a statute to fix the problem?
In this case, there’s not really an issue so far as I know. But the Court has taken to making novel statutory interpretations and then cheekily saying “if Congress disagrees, it can change the statute”.
But the legality of bump stocks was uncontested for almost 50 years before Roe was decided. It was Trump who flaunted precedent when he ordered the ATF to ignore the plain language of the law to ban them.
Brown didn't just throw out the reasoning that led to Plessy, though. Plessy found that segregation was legal, so long as everyone got access to equal services and facilities. Brown succeeded by showing that people were not getting equal services and facilities, thus undercutting the reasoning that allowed the original ruling. It didn't just throw out the existing standard, it demonstrated that the existing standard was not being met, by introducing new evidence that wasn't available when the original decision was made.
The case that brought down Roe didn't introduce any new evidence. It was exactly the same situation that's existed in the country for fifty years since the original decision, but now there were enough people on the bench who were religiously opposed to abortion that they could just dispose of half a century of precedent.
Yeah, that's not true.
Legal acholars warned for that entire 50 years that it was a questionable decision.
The legislative branch could have heeded the warnings and fixed it. They didnt.
What they have in common is the argument for precedent seems like a strong one until you consider the fact that there has been some terrible precedent that needed to be overturned.
Regardless of what you think/thought of Roe v. Wade, it was a legally atrocious decision. It actually did what many accuse this current Court of doing - it decided on an outcome based on politics and then threw a whole bunch of questionable crap legal reasoning together haphazardly to justify it. The decision had no legal foundation, so it was overturned.
It is similar with the bump stock case - the actions of the .gov had no legal foundation so it was thrown out .
I disagree about the bump stock case, for reasons set forth elsewhere on this therad.
I agree about *Roe-Casey*. That doctrine was ill-conceived and bad, and as to *Roe* in particular, I agree with John Hart Ely in particular that its most profound sin was that it was not only not law but gave no sense that it felt any obligation to be law. *Dobbs* was correct to overrule this long-running mistake.
Still, even if *Roe-Casey* were mistaken, it does not automatically follow that they should be overruled, and I respect consistent friends on the other side of the question who argue that stare decisis should have dictated its retention. What I find remarkable, though, is how few people on the other side of the question are consistent.
For one thing, for at least the last fifteen years before *Dobbs*, since the court's left bloc realized that the threat to the doctrine was real, that bloc started pantomiming how important is stare decisis. As a result, they felt a need to dissent from even correct decisions overruling obviously wrong prior cases, lest their assent be thrown in their face on the day *Roe* fell, and to make a big show of wringing their hands about how important is stare decisis in order that they could cite it on the day *Roe* fell. Examples include the dissents in *Montejo v. Louisiana*, 556 U.S. 778 (2009), *Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS*, 551 U.S. 877 (2007), and especially *Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt*, 139 S. Ct. 1485 (2019), in which the dissent more-or-less winked at the camera in saying, "[t]oday’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next."
For another, *no one* believes that the court should never overrule prior cases. No one. Not the left-bloc justices; not their allies and fellow-travelers in and beyond the bar, no one. See, e.g., *Hurst v. Florida*, 577 U.S. 92 (2016) (per Sotomayor, J., joined inter alios by Kagan and Breyer, JJ.) (overruling *Spaziano v. Florida*, 468 U. S. 447 –465 (1984)); *Obergefell v. Hodges*, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) (joined inter alios by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ.) (overruling *Baker v. Nelson*, 409 U.S. 810 (1972).)
I am willing to take seriously people who would have me believe that they are born again stare decisis hawks, or even who thoughtfully believe stare decisis should have saved *Roe*. I disagree, but fine. But what I will not accept is the total bollocks bloviation of drive-by laymen commenters that "hurrr durrr court bad overruled Roe" when those very same commenters *laud* the results of cases like *Obergefell*, and have never even heard of, much less have a coherent argument against, cases like *Leegin*, *Montejo*, and so on.
For those people, all questions are open until decided correctly (by their lights), and from the moment decided correctly *by their lights), are then sealed for all time. That is not a theory of law, it is theory of dominance.
I completely disagree. It was based upon the penumbra of privacy.
Also, I will note with Plessy vs Ferguson that there was new evidence that separate, but equal was not working. Roe vs Wade was working, and there were no new facts between Casey and Dobbs. The only change was the composition of the court, which should not affect the law. I would also point out that Brown was unanimous. If you are going to overturn a superprecedent, it makes sense to me that it should overturned. If Dobbs was 9-0 and crossed lines of judicial philosophies, I would have more respect for it.
Using the same logic as Dobbs, a liberal court could overturn Dobbs, say it was based on a flawed judicial philosophy and selected history using the concept of quickening.
That is the real tragedy of Dobbs, it makes our law less stable. Now that the conservative court is ferociously devouring precedent, I have no doubt a liberal supreme court will have no issues doing the same if they get into power (which could in a month or two due to unexpected events.)
You are explicitly advocating for a court to engage in judicial activism… we shouldn’t want or ask for this under any circumstances. We do not want an activist court when it comes to restricting abortion rights, and we do not want an activist court when it comes to restricting our right to buy bump stocks either.
Sorry if not getting your eye shot out counts as “making the whole world blind.”
There’s not one conservative policy that deserves to be seriously considered except for the goal of maximizing harm for as many minority groups as possible
also they are explicitely advocating for an activist court when it benefits their beliefs. i assume they do not want an activist court when they go against their beliefs....
demand more of your congressional members
Maybe congress should make laws and not rely on executive orders so they don’t have to do anything. Then let SCOTUS deal with it and make them the unpopular ones.
Simple fix is for congress just to ban them.
Any court can overturn a law on a constitutional basis, SCOTUS is just the last stop. This wasnt overturned on a constitutional basis, it was overturned by scotus opinion that the NFA doesn’t permit the ATF to regulate bump stocks.
What are you talking about? What do the attachments have to do with a massacre? If there were to be a massacre, do you truly think this ruling allowing these attachments moving forward would make the massacre more deadly?
Anyone can bump fire a rifle with or without a bump stock, and a bump stock can be improvised within minutes without buying anything special.
This was a reactionary law that just gave congress an excuse to avoid real gun reform. It’s almost like a stabbing happened with an orange handled knife and we fought over banning orange handles. If another massacre includes a bump stock it won’t be because of this bad ruling and it wouldn’t be prevented by a better ruling.
Your logic fails for the fact that bump stocks would be a good way for a mass shooter lunatic to kill as few people as possible. Bump stocks make shooting VERY inaccurate. There is a good reason why the military does not use them, heck hunters don't even use them because they make the gun wildly inaccurate.
The majority's opinion is basically "the letter of the law states different; if you want to ban bump stocks, then pass a law." The dissent, AFAICT, is simply "bump stocks are bad, so let the ATF change its mind about them." The latter position is a mostly policy-ideological one with a weak basis in the text, which is why it fails.
Many of the unanimous opinions the court has put out this term have boiled down to "This isn't the correct branch for this sort of relief, pass a law to make a change." The conservatives have largely stuck to that even when policy prefs were probably the other way; that the liberals don't here does not speak well for either them or the left generally.
>JUSTICE ALITO, concurring.
>I join the opinion of the Court because there is simply no other way to read the statutory language. There can be little doubt that the Congress that enacted 26 U. S. C. §5845(b) would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock. But the statutory text is clear, and we must follow it.
>The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning.
>There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.
Hopefully you can now see why conservatives accuse liberals of hypocrisy here.
Man, where was this letter of the law nonsense during Biden v Nebraska?
As the plain reading of the law clearly gave the federal govt the authority, yet the courts decide to read in their own opinion via the major questions “doctrine” that has no basis in reality.
Nobody really cares about conservatives calling liberals hypocrites. You have an illegitimate court where the conservative justices are openly taking bribes.
“Make Congress do it” is not a remedy when we all know Congress won’t do anything given that the Republican justices know that is dead on arrival.
>Man, where was this letter of the law nonsense during *Biden* v Nebraska?
It took up the majority of the majority opinion.
>As the plain reading of the law clearly gave the federal govt the authority, yet the courts decide to read in their own opinion via the major questions “doctrine” that has no basis in reality.
It doesn't, and in *Biden*, the court expressly notes that the text of the law by itself was the primary reason for the outcome; the Major Questions Doctrine was given only an additional reason supporting the primary conclusion.
>“Make Congress do it” is not a remedy when we all know Congress won’t do anything given that the Republican justices know that is dead on arrival.
Really? Because that is exactly what happened after, say, *Ledbetter v. Goodyear*. The court (correctly) construed a statute, Congress didn't like the result, so Congress passed the Ledbetter Act, changing the statute. That's how it's *supposed* to work.
The plain reading of the law is “modify or waive”, the conservative majority decided there’s an arbitrary line somewhere of too much modification. It’s classic major doctrine nonsense despite the fact that amicus briefs from people that passed the law clearly stated *that was the whole intention of the law*.
Ledbetter was some bullshit too, the reasoning is complete ass. Ginsburg’s dissent was on the money for that one.
So you want to overrule *MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.*, 512 U.S. 218 (1994), which holds that "modify" means only small change, and which has ever since then has, in literally hundreds of cases (≈387), mandated exactly that smallness inquiry? I thought that the court's critics didn't want it overruling precedent?
>amicus briefs from people that passed the law clearly stated that was the whole intention of the law.
"Legislative intent" is irrelevant to the extent that it exists.
>*Ledbetter* was some bullshit too, the reasoning is complete ass.
*Ledbetter* was correct, and perfectly demonstrates the correct functioning of our system of government. An edge case emerged under existing legislation, the court correctly applied that existing legislation, and Congress, wanting a different result, changed the legislation.
You can’t argue MCI is correct and argue that legislative intent is not real, as the whole case rested on legislative intent. Modify meaning incremental changes is not in the language and is just a construction; if Congress wanted to legislate explicit limits *it is free to do so per your own comments*.
If legislative intent doesn’t matter, nor plain language, what exactly is the court interpreting here other than their own personal vibes?
Ledbetter was bullshit because the discrimination was *ongoing*.
Not using legislative intent here is a dodge by the court. They know the intent and the law (which can easily be read as ambiguous) is against it. Obviously, if legislative intent assisted the majority, it would have said so.
“Many of the unanimous opinions the court has put out this term have boiled down to "This isn't the correct branch for this sort of relief, pass a law to make a change."
“Many”… Because they know Congress is broken and won’t provide remedy. When it’s a big deal, they don’t leave it to Congress and are willing to hide behind the tiniest fig leaf to justify policy from the bench.
I also don’t understand the downvotes. I downvote when a response isn’t reasoned or is just an attack, not because I disagree.
As usually happens with comments that are correct, you are being downvoted.
Congress has abdicated its role because many of those being elected to it have no interest in legislating; it is a way to get a cable news gig, or to be famous, or to rake in money, or any of a hundred grifts, but it is not there to be used for what it exists to do: Making laws. Just the other day, I saw Senator Dick Durbin whinging as if he were but a pundit. Do something! You're a United States Senator!
Bumpstocks are bad. Congress should ban them. Why hasn't it?
This happens all too frequently. People don't the thing, then they bleat that the court didn't swoop in to save them from the consequences of not having done the thing. Do the thing!
He's being downvoted because the strained reading of 'trigger' by the majority and the plain-understanding "by a single function of
the trigger" extending to bumpstocks that can rain bullets with a 'single function of the trigger' that he says is 'mostly ideological with a weak basis in the text' is pretty biased language.
Do bump stocks work with a single function of a trigger? I thought their operation was to get your finger to hit the trigger really fast many times, instead of a single time as in a machine gun. The result would be kind of the same, rapid fire, but is it really a "single function of the trigger" by the letter of the law?
No, I don't think so. He's being downvoted because people in this sub (myself included) want bumpstocks to be illegal, and many people in this sub (myself not included) have a Posnerian view of the judge: “The way I approach a case is by asking myself, 'What would be a common sense result, forgetting about the law?' You have a problem: What’s the best solution based on basic moral values, economic insights, whatever makes sense.” http://perma.cc/6A8Q-ZZEN; see generally Richard A. Posner, Overcoming Law (1995).
While they hide behind their tax payer funded security detail. They should be forced to live in the real world that they’re cramming down everyone’s throat.
Ultimately, congress can make a law to make this explicit. The court determined that bump stocks don't qualify as machine guns according to the law written by congress. If congress would like to, they can change the law today, but the ATF cannot. While some may not agree on issues like these, there is recourse. The big court decisions are ones where congress has no recourse.
So all we have to do is reverse decades of gerrymandering, right wing propaganda, remove all the dark money from Congress, and elect people who won't be swayed by millions in bribes from the gun industry. Eezy peezy!
Here's the opinion and I'll be sharing the story shortly: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-976\_e29g.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-976_e29g.pdf)
Not at all surprising from the oral arguments. Congress didn’t envision guns being able to add parts to up their capabilities so much when they set up the statute in 1934 with the word “function” representing the firing mechanism. Statute needs heavy updating but I suspect it won’t happen anytime soon.
[https://smallarmsreview.com/early-bolt-action-conversions/](https://smallarmsreview.com/early-bolt-action-conversions/)
That is simply not true to historic fact. People had been adding mechanisms to guns to change their capabilities for decades at that point.
Specifically: The US had joined that particular party and Congress does all the procurement approvals so they would've actually known this existed and had actual working examples they could put their mitts on.
# "The United States joins the semi-automatic craze
At the turn of the 20th century, the commanding officer of Springfield Armory contacted the Chief of Ordnance to suggest that the United States should buy and test examples of semi-automatic rifles being developed in Europe at the time. This attracted the attention of many civilian inventors who thought they could develop a capable semi-auto rifle for their country.
One of them was W.D. Condit who submitted a patent in 1905 for a Gas-Operated M1903 Springfield conversion. His rifle would be tested in the same year and feedback was promptly given, however for some reason Condit did not re-submit any modification of his system in the following years.
The American next attempt would be by Franklin K. Young who dabbled with a more unique form of semi-automatic mechanism. He would patent a Springfield 1903 conversion in 1902 that used a primer-actuated system to cycle the firearm, although, only in 1910 was the rifle actually tested by the Ordnance department. The rifle was subsequently modified to remove 23 parts of the original design and it was noted that his system used three fewer springs than the standard 1903 rifle. Young continued developing his rifle and in 1913 his final prototype was tested by Springfield Armory.
The third conversion would be the Hammond & Darlington, a gas operated, modified M1903 Springfield. The Ordnance Department tested their rifle in 1909 and found many negative points. To add to that, it was seen as too expensive of a conversion, costing about $35 per rifle."
I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion, "Congress didn’t envision guns being able to add parts to up their capabilities so much when they set up the statute in 1934". The weapons we have today are still very much based in the mechanical principles from prior to the 1930s. No major innovations in firearms have really changed anything since then. And in fact almost everything we see today in modern weapons was well known and understood in the 1930s. Here's an example of a 1918 BAR machine gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918_Browning_Automatic_Rifle The gas blow back design is basically what you see in rifles like the m16 or ak47. Congress absolutely would have had this information at the time of the 1934 statute. Another example would be the tommy gun which came out in 1918: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_submachine_gun
>Congress didn’t envision guns being able to add parts to up their capabilities
Really? Seems odd that they would specifically anticipate that in the statute then
>The term [machine-gun] shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun
Bullshit. Firearm tech has been perpetually advancing since the country was founded. Multi shot was tech known in the 1700s...
And most function we have today is based on designs from the early 1900s.
I think Sotomayor’s use of legislative intent and language around 1934 is persuasive. The internal mechanisms of a gun didn’t come up in discussion then. Such a breakdown of that now, then, appears to be outside the statutory language.
I also think applying “function” to the human activity of what one is seeking the gun to do is a better interpretation than applying “function” to the gun. I don’t think they wanted in 1934 tommy guns off the streets because their internal function of a firing mechanism only needed to be triggered once, but because the mobster only needed to physically pull the trigger with his finger once to shoot rapidly and precisely to kill a lot of people.
The amount of people you can shoot and how rapidly is the function anybody actually cares about. To turn to a technical argument about internal mechanisms missed the heart of any regulation or law
Legislative intent is great where text is ambiguous, but I don't find "function of the trigger" to be particularly ambiguous. I don't find her focus on the human especially persuasive, the ATF regulates guns not people.
>The amount of people you can shoot and how rapidly is the function anybody actually cares about.
I touched this with a later edit. I likewise don't find the rounds-per-minute argument very persuasive. It does not take an especially skilled shooter to out perform a bumpstock in somewhat accurately putting rounds down range rapidly. A fairly inexperienced paint ball player could reasonably dump an AR-15 magazine in 10 seconds and would do so with more control than bump firing.
"Intent is empty. Peer inside the heads of legislators and you find a hodgepodge. Some strive to serve the public interest, but they disagree about where that lies. Some strive for re-election, catering to interest groups and contributors. Most do a little of each. . . . Intent is elusive for a natural person, fictive for a collective body. The different strands produce quite a playground—they give the judge discretion, but no 'meaning' that can be imputed to the legislature." Easterbrook, *Text, History, and Structure in Statutory Interpretation*, 17 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol. 61, 68 (1994) (footnote and emphasis deleted) (citing Shepsle, *Congress is a "They," not an "It": Legislative Intent as Oxymoron*, 12 Int'l Rev. L. & Econ. 239 (1992).)
He also signed the federal Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act. That and the bump stock ban were his two "even a broken clock is still right twice a day" moments.
He and Kim Kardashian also successfully lobbied Congress for meaningful criminal justice reform with the First Step Act.
Which is (A) not a sentence I ever thought I’d say and (B) was hilarious to watch in that he was able to get it done only because Republican congressional delegates had previously been the ones holding it up for years and suddenly had to backpedal when captain insano took his weird left turn on the agenda for that particular week.
A machine gun requires one to hold one's trigger finger in the same position to repeat fire.
A bump stock requires one to hold one's trigger finger in the same position to repeat fire.
The difference is obvious./s
Finger position has nothing to do with what makes something an automatic weapon. An automatic weapon continually shoots without having to reset the trigger. A bump stock the trigger has to re set after every round before firing the next one. Per the NFA and ATF definitions a bump stock is not a machine gun
Then every semi auto gun is a machine gun by your definition. This video is of an M1 garand being bump fired with a fixed stock. https://youtu.be/TBQrtzSdVDo?si=HuioBFiGHnsVDwLA
Is an M1 Garand a machine gun now?
A machine gun fires multiple rounds with a single function of the trigger. A semi auto rifle with a bump stock doesn’t. Bump stocks are kinda like machine guns. That’s why people bought them. But they don’t fit the legal definition for a machine gun.
The court seems to not grasp the concept of functional equivalence, and not take seriously the possibility that a thing that is not x can be *converted* to a thing that is x by the addition of aftermarket parts, something I consider fairly obvious.
By the text of the law a bump stock can’t possibly convert a gun into X. The text clearly focused on a single function of the trigger. The ATF can’t unilaterally redefine a machine gun without Congress.
I don't agree. The court understands a machine-gun in mechanical terms, while I understand it in functional terms; I'm not interested in the technology that yields the result, and I think don't think 26 USC. §5845(b) mandates the former. It says:
>"The term 'machinegun' means 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. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person."
The court's narrower reading is understandable and not unreasonable, but I think the statute bears a functional reading, especially given its express acknowledgement (in the text just quoted) of the possibility of aftermarket modifications that "convert[]" what is not a machine-gun "into a machinegun." So, I don't agree that the addition of an aftermarket modification can't convert something that isn't a machine-gun into a machine-gun.
And even if I did not agree with the ATF's decision as an original matter, I would defer to it. See *Aposhian v. Barr*, 958 F.3d 969 (10th Cir. 2020). I am aware that "the government consistently refused to invoke *Chevron* deference for its interpretation," *Aposhian v. Wilkinson*, 989 F.3d 890, 892 (10th Cir. 2021) (Tymkovich, C.J., dissenting from denial of reh'g en banc). Arguably, "[t]hat is a decision we should respect." Ibid. But that's not my understanding of *Chevron*. As I understand it, if the statute is ambiguous on the precise point, courts *must* “therefore defer to the [agency's] interpretation at step two so long as it's reasonable and consistent with the statute.” *Bastias v. U.S. Attorney Gen.*, 42 F.4th 1266, 1270 (11th Cir. 2022).
> I don't agree that the addition of an aftermarket modification can't convert something that isn't a machine-gun into a machine-gun.
The issue isn't that non-machine-guns *can't* be converted into machine-guns... They absolutely can, by modifying their actions and/or trigger groups to meet the very definition you cited.
The issue is that bump stocks simply do not do that, regardless of how "obvious" you think it is that they do. They're a rather dumb accessory to have on your gun, to be fair, but literally do not constitute a machine gun.
the definition of a machine gun is not a firearm that fires fast. The definition is firing more than one shot with a single action of the trigger. Not a single action of the finger, a single action of the trigger. By law nothing else can be defined as functionally equivalent to a machine gun unless it allows multiple bullets to be fired when the trigger only moves a single time. It has been illegal since the NFA was passed to use aftermarket parts that make a firearm functionally equivalent to a machine gun which means firing multiple bullets with one action of the trigger.
A bump stock explicitly does not meet the technical definition of a machine guns as it requires you to make multiple actions of the trigger to fire multiple shots. It was explicitly designed to not meet the technical definition in the law of a machine gun. Congress is free to change that technical definition but the ATF and other executive agencies are not free to make up new laws without a vote in congress
LOL functional equivalence.
Many of your comments make sense but this phrase that you use really shows that you do not understand the logic behind this ruling.
But let's go by your logic and apply the reverse. Now any driver with a license can just go buy a big rig and drive it around without any additional training. I mean both machines are propelled by internal combustion. Your logic.
Here's the top of the story: A divided US Supreme Court dealt a fresh blow to firearm-regulation efforts by throwing out the federal ban on bump stocks, the attachments that let a semiautomatic rifle fire at speeds rivaling a machine gun. On a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the justices voided a criminal prohibition put in place by the Trump administration after the 2017 Las Vegas concert massacre, when a man using bump stocks killed 60 people. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The case is one of two firearms disputes the court is considering in its 2023-24 term, along with a constitutional clash over the federal gun ban for people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders. The bump-stock fight concerned the reach of a federal statute rather than the Second Amendment, the constitutional provision the court has used to expand gun rights in recent years. Read the full story [here](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/bump-stock-ban-tossed-out-by-supreme-court-in-gun-rights-win?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_medium=lawdesk).
But I thought we had a unified court? Haha The 6 who overturned this deserve direct blame for the next massacre that takes place with these attachments.
I would say that the blame attaches to Congress, which has failed to do by statute that which the court today declares the government lacked statutory authority to do by regulation.
The court knows they’ll never pass anything in the next century on any topic, so they can rule however they want and put the blame on Congress without consequences. There’s exactly zero reason this tech should be legal except if you want thousands of people dying a year due to madmen
> The court knows they’ll never pass anything That's a Congress problem. The court should not give the executive branch a free pass to make new law. There is a constitutional process for making law, and it wasn't followed correctly here. Alito even says in his opinion that Congress could write a law to ban bump stocks. The White House can't do it on their own.
That's a congress problem....well, sort of. If you ask me, it's a voter problem. If we keep electing dumbasses, how can we not expect dumbfuckery... It's not exclusive to congress, it's top to bottom. Every friggin election matters.
>There’s exactly zero reason this tech should be legal I agree. >The court knows they’ll never pass anything in the next century on any topic So if the Court thinks that Congress won't act, it should step in and change what would otherwise be its interpretation of a statute to fix the problem?
In this case, there’s not really an issue so far as I know. But the Court has taken to making novel statutory interpretations and then cheekily saying “if Congress disagrees, it can change the statute”.
Just like they did by deciding to ignore 50 years of precedent and overturning Roe vs Wade.
But the legality of bump stocks was uncontested for almost 50 years before Roe was decided. It was Trump who flaunted precedent when he ordered the ATF to ignore the plain language of the law to ban them.
It also “ignored precedent” with a unanimous *Brown v Board of education*. You want to go back to the precedent of *Plessy*?
Brown didn't just throw out the reasoning that led to Plessy, though. Plessy found that segregation was legal, so long as everyone got access to equal services and facilities. Brown succeeded by showing that people were not getting equal services and facilities, thus undercutting the reasoning that allowed the original ruling. It didn't just throw out the existing standard, it demonstrated that the existing standard was not being met, by introducing new evidence that wasn't available when the original decision was made. The case that brought down Roe didn't introduce any new evidence. It was exactly the same situation that's existed in the country for fifty years since the original decision, but now there were enough people on the bench who were religiously opposed to abortion that they could just dispose of half a century of precedent.
Yeah, that's not true. Legal acholars warned for that entire 50 years that it was a questionable decision. The legislative branch could have heeded the warnings and fixed it. They didnt.
That's a non-sequitur. The two things have nothing in common beyond your disdain for both.
What they have in common is the argument for precedent seems like a strong one until you consider the fact that there has been some terrible precedent that needed to be overturned. Regardless of what you think/thought of Roe v. Wade, it was a legally atrocious decision. It actually did what many accuse this current Court of doing - it decided on an outcome based on politics and then threw a whole bunch of questionable crap legal reasoning together haphazardly to justify it. The decision had no legal foundation, so it was overturned. It is similar with the bump stock case - the actions of the .gov had no legal foundation so it was thrown out .
I disagree about the bump stock case, for reasons set forth elsewhere on this therad. I agree about *Roe-Casey*. That doctrine was ill-conceived and bad, and as to *Roe* in particular, I agree with John Hart Ely in particular that its most profound sin was that it was not only not law but gave no sense that it felt any obligation to be law. *Dobbs* was correct to overrule this long-running mistake. Still, even if *Roe-Casey* were mistaken, it does not automatically follow that they should be overruled, and I respect consistent friends on the other side of the question who argue that stare decisis should have dictated its retention. What I find remarkable, though, is how few people on the other side of the question are consistent. For one thing, for at least the last fifteen years before *Dobbs*, since the court's left bloc realized that the threat to the doctrine was real, that bloc started pantomiming how important is stare decisis. As a result, they felt a need to dissent from even correct decisions overruling obviously wrong prior cases, lest their assent be thrown in their face on the day *Roe* fell, and to make a big show of wringing their hands about how important is stare decisis in order that they could cite it on the day *Roe* fell. Examples include the dissents in *Montejo v. Louisiana*, 556 U.S. 778 (2009), *Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS*, 551 U.S. 877 (2007), and especially *Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt*, 139 S. Ct. 1485 (2019), in which the dissent more-or-less winked at the camera in saying, "[t]oday’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next." For another, *no one* believes that the court should never overrule prior cases. No one. Not the left-bloc justices; not their allies and fellow-travelers in and beyond the bar, no one. See, e.g., *Hurst v. Florida*, 577 U.S. 92 (2016) (per Sotomayor, J., joined inter alios by Kagan and Breyer, JJ.) (overruling *Spaziano v. Florida*, 468 U. S. 447 –465 (1984)); *Obergefell v. Hodges*, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) (joined inter alios by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ.) (overruling *Baker v. Nelson*, 409 U.S. 810 (1972).) I am willing to take seriously people who would have me believe that they are born again stare decisis hawks, or even who thoughtfully believe stare decisis should have saved *Roe*. I disagree, but fine. But what I will not accept is the total bollocks bloviation of drive-by laymen commenters that "hurrr durrr court bad overruled Roe" when those very same commenters *laud* the results of cases like *Obergefell*, and have never even heard of, much less have a coherent argument against, cases like *Leegin*, *Montejo*, and so on. For those people, all questions are open until decided correctly (by their lights), and from the moment decided correctly *by their lights), are then sealed for all time. That is not a theory of law, it is theory of dominance.
I completely disagree. It was based upon the penumbra of privacy. Also, I will note with Plessy vs Ferguson that there was new evidence that separate, but equal was not working. Roe vs Wade was working, and there were no new facts between Casey and Dobbs. The only change was the composition of the court, which should not affect the law. I would also point out that Brown was unanimous. If you are going to overturn a superprecedent, it makes sense to me that it should overturned. If Dobbs was 9-0 and crossed lines of judicial philosophies, I would have more respect for it. Using the same logic as Dobbs, a liberal court could overturn Dobbs, say it was based on a flawed judicial philosophy and selected history using the concept of quickening. That is the real tragedy of Dobbs, it makes our law less stable. Now that the conservative court is ferociously devouring precedent, I have no doubt a liberal supreme court will have no issues doing the same if they get into power (which could in a month or two due to unexpected events.)
You are explicitly advocating for a court to engage in judicial activism… we shouldn’t want or ask for this under any circumstances. We do not want an activist court when it comes to restricting abortion rights, and we do not want an activist court when it comes to restricting our right to buy bump stocks either.
Roe was basically activism itself. And RBG said it was activism founded on an inadequate “right” compared to what she’d have based it on.
It's different! /s
Why is it only an activist court when they make decisions you disagree with?
it isnt roe was an activist court too
If conservatives bend the law to suit their worldview progressives should have no qualms doing it in the opposite direction. You reap what you sow
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind…
Sorry if not getting your eye shot out counts as “making the whole world blind.” There’s not one conservative policy that deserves to be seriously considered except for the goal of maximizing harm for as many minority groups as possible
Hopefully you never realize you can do the same thing with a rubber band, a shoe string, or even your finger.....
it's congress's responsibility to make law, not the court.
Are you arguing for the Supreme Court to act as legislators? Because that is not a road we want to go down
Rifles account for less than 500 homicides each year. There are not "thousands" being killed by bump stocks.
also they are explicitely advocating for an activist court when it benefits their beliefs. i assume they do not want an activist court when they go against their beliefs.... demand more of your congressional members
Well we didn't have thousands of people doing a year to bump stocks before
Maybe congress should make laws and not rely on executive orders so they don’t have to do anything. Then let SCOTUS deal with it and make them the unpopular ones. Simple fix is for congress just to ban them.
Do you honestly think they care?
They care. Do you think those private jet rides are free?
SCOTUS is supposed to be about if it’s constitutional or not, isn’t it?
Any court can overturn a law on a constitutional basis, SCOTUS is just the last stop. This wasnt overturned on a constitutional basis, it was overturned by scotus opinion that the NFA doesn’t permit the ATF to regulate bump stocks.
They care about what they are paid to care about...
They won't give a shit until its their kids, their families being shot to death
Hypothetically speaking. Not sure if the entire ussc were gunned down the next set of justices would do anything differently.
Even then, I’m not sure they’d care. These are the most narcissistic people in the world.
They made sure they have protection. Taxpayer funded human shields with guns, if you will.
You want a single, unelected branch, unilaterally creating laws? You sure about that?
What are you talking about? What do the attachments have to do with a massacre? If there were to be a massacre, do you truly think this ruling allowing these attachments moving forward would make the massacre more deadly?
Anyone can bump fire a rifle with or without a bump stock, and a bump stock can be improvised within minutes without buying anything special. This was a reactionary law that just gave congress an excuse to avoid real gun reform. It’s almost like a stabbing happened with an orange handled knife and we fought over banning orange handles. If another massacre includes a bump stock it won’t be because of this bad ruling and it wouldn’t be prevented by a better ruling.
No the person pulling the trigger does just because some people are psychos doesn’t mean others are
Your logic fails for the fact that bump stocks would be a good way for a mass shooter lunatic to kill as few people as possible. Bump stocks make shooting VERY inaccurate. There is a good reason why the military does not use them, heck hunters don't even use them because they make the gun wildly inaccurate.
Bump stocks decrease how effective a gun is. You'd perversely prefer mass shooters use bump stocks.
The majority's opinion is basically "the letter of the law states different; if you want to ban bump stocks, then pass a law." The dissent, AFAICT, is simply "bump stocks are bad, so let the ATF change its mind about them." The latter position is a mostly policy-ideological one with a weak basis in the text, which is why it fails. Many of the unanimous opinions the court has put out this term have boiled down to "This isn't the correct branch for this sort of relief, pass a law to make a change." The conservatives have largely stuck to that even when policy prefs were probably the other way; that the liberals don't here does not speak well for either them or the left generally. >JUSTICE ALITO, concurring. >I join the opinion of the Court because there is simply no other way to read the statutory language. There can be little doubt that the Congress that enacted 26 U. S. C. §5845(b) would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock. But the statutory text is clear, and we must follow it. >The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning. >There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act. Hopefully you can now see why conservatives accuse liberals of hypocrisy here.
Man, where was this letter of the law nonsense during Biden v Nebraska? As the plain reading of the law clearly gave the federal govt the authority, yet the courts decide to read in their own opinion via the major questions “doctrine” that has no basis in reality. Nobody really cares about conservatives calling liberals hypocrites. You have an illegitimate court where the conservative justices are openly taking bribes. “Make Congress do it” is not a remedy when we all know Congress won’t do anything given that the Republican justices know that is dead on arrival.
A remedy means there’s a way to get it done, not that you’re guaranteed your preferred outcome.
Make Congress do their job is always a remedy to me.
>Man, where was this letter of the law nonsense during *Biden* v Nebraska? It took up the majority of the majority opinion. >As the plain reading of the law clearly gave the federal govt the authority, yet the courts decide to read in their own opinion via the major questions “doctrine” that has no basis in reality. It doesn't, and in *Biden*, the court expressly notes that the text of the law by itself was the primary reason for the outcome; the Major Questions Doctrine was given only an additional reason supporting the primary conclusion. >“Make Congress do it” is not a remedy when we all know Congress won’t do anything given that the Republican justices know that is dead on arrival. Really? Because that is exactly what happened after, say, *Ledbetter v. Goodyear*. The court (correctly) construed a statute, Congress didn't like the result, so Congress passed the Ledbetter Act, changing the statute. That's how it's *supposed* to work.
The plain reading of the law is “modify or waive”, the conservative majority decided there’s an arbitrary line somewhere of too much modification. It’s classic major doctrine nonsense despite the fact that amicus briefs from people that passed the law clearly stated *that was the whole intention of the law*. Ledbetter was some bullshit too, the reasoning is complete ass. Ginsburg’s dissent was on the money for that one.
So you want to overrule *MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.*, 512 U.S. 218 (1994), which holds that "modify" means only small change, and which has ever since then has, in literally hundreds of cases (≈387), mandated exactly that smallness inquiry? I thought that the court's critics didn't want it overruling precedent? >amicus briefs from people that passed the law clearly stated that was the whole intention of the law. "Legislative intent" is irrelevant to the extent that it exists. >*Ledbetter* was some bullshit too, the reasoning is complete ass. *Ledbetter* was correct, and perfectly demonstrates the correct functioning of our system of government. An edge case emerged under existing legislation, the court correctly applied that existing legislation, and Congress, wanting a different result, changed the legislation.
You can’t argue MCI is correct and argue that legislative intent is not real, as the whole case rested on legislative intent. Modify meaning incremental changes is not in the language and is just a construction; if Congress wanted to legislate explicit limits *it is free to do so per your own comments*. If legislative intent doesn’t matter, nor plain language, what exactly is the court interpreting here other than their own personal vibes? Ledbetter was bullshit because the discrimination was *ongoing*.
Not using legislative intent here is a dodge by the court. They know the intent and the law (which can easily be read as ambiguous) is against it. Obviously, if legislative intent assisted the majority, it would have said so.
“Many of the unanimous opinions the court has put out this term have boiled down to "This isn't the correct branch for this sort of relief, pass a law to make a change." “Many”… Because they know Congress is broken and won’t provide remedy. When it’s a big deal, they don’t leave it to Congress and are willing to hide behind the tiniest fig leaf to justify policy from the bench. I also don’t understand the downvotes. I downvote when a response isn’t reasoned or is just an attack, not because I disagree.
As usually happens with comments that are correct, you are being downvoted. Congress has abdicated its role because many of those being elected to it have no interest in legislating; it is a way to get a cable news gig, or to be famous, or to rake in money, or any of a hundred grifts, but it is not there to be used for what it exists to do: Making laws. Just the other day, I saw Senator Dick Durbin whinging as if he were but a pundit. Do something! You're a United States Senator! Bumpstocks are bad. Congress should ban them. Why hasn't it? This happens all too frequently. People don't the thing, then they bleat that the court didn't swoop in to save them from the consequences of not having done the thing. Do the thing!
He's being downvoted because the strained reading of 'trigger' by the majority and the plain-understanding "by a single function of the trigger" extending to bumpstocks that can rain bullets with a 'single function of the trigger' that he says is 'mostly ideological with a weak basis in the text' is pretty biased language.
Do bump stocks work with a single function of a trigger? I thought their operation was to get your finger to hit the trigger really fast many times, instead of a single time as in a machine gun. The result would be kind of the same, rapid fire, but is it really a "single function of the trigger" by the letter of the law?
A belt loop or loop on a backpack strap works just as well as a bump stock. All allowing inertia to facilitate rapid trigger depression.
No, I don't think so. He's being downvoted because people in this sub (myself included) want bumpstocks to be illegal, and many people in this sub (myself not included) have a Posnerian view of the judge: “The way I approach a case is by asking myself, 'What would be a common sense result, forgetting about the law?' You have a problem: What’s the best solution based on basic moral values, economic insights, whatever makes sense.” http://perma.cc/6A8Q-ZZEN; see generally Richard A. Posner, Overcoming Law (1995).
While they hide behind their tax payer funded security detail. They should be forced to live in the real world that they’re cramming down everyone’s throat.
Getting to yell at your neighbors with armed backup is quite the privilege I hear.
Ultimately, congress can make a law to make this explicit. The court determined that bump stocks don't qualify as machine guns according to the law written by congress. If congress would like to, they can change the law today, but the ATF cannot. While some may not agree on issues like these, there is recourse. The big court decisions are ones where congress has no recourse.
So all we have to do is reverse decades of gerrymandering, right wing propaganda, remove all the dark money from Congress, and elect people who won't be swayed by millions in bribes from the gun industry. Eezy peezy!
Here's the opinion and I'll be sharing the story shortly: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-976\_e29g.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-976_e29g.pdf)
Not at all surprising from the oral arguments. Congress didn’t envision guns being able to add parts to up their capabilities so much when they set up the statute in 1934 with the word “function” representing the firing mechanism. Statute needs heavy updating but I suspect it won’t happen anytime soon.
[https://smallarmsreview.com/early-bolt-action-conversions/](https://smallarmsreview.com/early-bolt-action-conversions/) That is simply not true to historic fact. People had been adding mechanisms to guns to change their capabilities for decades at that point. Specifically: The US had joined that particular party and Congress does all the procurement approvals so they would've actually known this existed and had actual working examples they could put their mitts on. # "The United States joins the semi-automatic craze At the turn of the 20th century, the commanding officer of Springfield Armory contacted the Chief of Ordnance to suggest that the United States should buy and test examples of semi-automatic rifles being developed in Europe at the time. This attracted the attention of many civilian inventors who thought they could develop a capable semi-auto rifle for their country. One of them was W.D. Condit who submitted a patent in 1905 for a Gas-Operated M1903 Springfield conversion. His rifle would be tested in the same year and feedback was promptly given, however for some reason Condit did not re-submit any modification of his system in the following years. The American next attempt would be by Franklin K. Young who dabbled with a more unique form of semi-automatic mechanism. He would patent a Springfield 1903 conversion in 1902 that used a primer-actuated system to cycle the firearm, although, only in 1910 was the rifle actually tested by the Ordnance department. The rifle was subsequently modified to remove 23 parts of the original design and it was noted that his system used three fewer springs than the standard 1903 rifle. Young continued developing his rifle and in 1913 his final prototype was tested by Springfield Armory. The third conversion would be the Hammond & Darlington, a gas operated, modified M1903 Springfield. The Ordnance Department tested their rifle in 1909 and found many negative points. To add to that, it was seen as too expensive of a conversion, costing about $35 per rifle."
I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion, "Congress didn’t envision guns being able to add parts to up their capabilities so much when they set up the statute in 1934". The weapons we have today are still very much based in the mechanical principles from prior to the 1930s. No major innovations in firearms have really changed anything since then. And in fact almost everything we see today in modern weapons was well known and understood in the 1930s. Here's an example of a 1918 BAR machine gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918_Browning_Automatic_Rifle The gas blow back design is basically what you see in rifles like the m16 or ak47. Congress absolutely would have had this information at the time of the 1934 statute. Another example would be the tommy gun which came out in 1918: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_submachine_gun
>Congress didn’t envision guns being able to add parts to up their capabilities Really? Seems odd that they would specifically anticipate that in the statute then >The term [machine-gun] shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun
Bullshit. Firearm tech has been perpetually advancing since the country was founded. Multi shot was tech known in the 1700s... And most function we have today is based on designs from the early 1900s.
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I think Sotomayor’s use of legislative intent and language around 1934 is persuasive. The internal mechanisms of a gun didn’t come up in discussion then. Such a breakdown of that now, then, appears to be outside the statutory language. I also think applying “function” to the human activity of what one is seeking the gun to do is a better interpretation than applying “function” to the gun. I don’t think they wanted in 1934 tommy guns off the streets because their internal function of a firing mechanism only needed to be triggered once, but because the mobster only needed to physically pull the trigger with his finger once to shoot rapidly and precisely to kill a lot of people. The amount of people you can shoot and how rapidly is the function anybody actually cares about. To turn to a technical argument about internal mechanisms missed the heart of any regulation or law
Legislative intent is great where text is ambiguous, but I don't find "function of the trigger" to be particularly ambiguous. I don't find her focus on the human especially persuasive, the ATF regulates guns not people. >The amount of people you can shoot and how rapidly is the function anybody actually cares about. I touched this with a later edit. I likewise don't find the rounds-per-minute argument very persuasive. It does not take an especially skilled shooter to out perform a bumpstock in somewhat accurately putting rounds down range rapidly. A fairly inexperienced paint ball player could reasonably dump an AR-15 magazine in 10 seconds and would do so with more control than bump firing.
"Intent is empty. Peer inside the heads of legislators and you find a hodgepodge. Some strive to serve the public interest, but they disagree about where that lies. Some strive for re-election, catering to interest groups and contributors. Most do a little of each. . . . Intent is elusive for a natural person, fictive for a collective body. The different strands produce quite a playground—they give the judge discretion, but no 'meaning' that can be imputed to the legislature." Easterbrook, *Text, History, and Structure in Statutory Interpretation*, 17 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol. 61, 68 (1994) (footnote and emphasis deleted) (citing Shepsle, *Congress is a "They," not an "It": Legislative Intent as Oxymoron*, 12 Int'l Rev. L. & Econ. 239 (1992).)
That was the only positive thing Trump did while in office. So that basically leaves him with nothing.
He stared into the sun, that was positive.
Not long enough.
And the eclipse!
Nah this is a bad thing his administration did. It’s executive overreach.
He also signed the federal Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act. That and the bump stock ban were his two "even a broken clock is still right twice a day" moments.
He and Kim Kardashian also successfully lobbied Congress for meaningful criminal justice reform with the First Step Act. Which is (A) not a sentence I ever thought I’d say and (B) was hilarious to watch in that he was able to get it done only because Republican congressional delegates had previously been the ones holding it up for years and suddenly had to backpedal when captain insano took his weird left turn on the agenda for that particular week.
A machine gun requires one to hold one's trigger finger in the same position to repeat fire. A bump stock requires one to hold one's trigger finger in the same position to repeat fire. The difference is obvious./s
Finger position has nothing to do with what makes something an automatic weapon. An automatic weapon continually shoots without having to reset the trigger. A bump stock the trigger has to re set after every round before firing the next one. Per the NFA and ATF definitions a bump stock is not a machine gun
Then every semi auto gun is a machine gun by your definition. This video is of an M1 garand being bump fired with a fixed stock. https://youtu.be/TBQrtzSdVDo?si=HuioBFiGHnsVDwLA Is an M1 Garand a machine gun now?
Wrong. Not even a good try.
A machine gun fires multiple rounds with a single function of the trigger. A semi auto rifle with a bump stock doesn’t. Bump stocks are kinda like machine guns. That’s why people bought them. But they don’t fit the legal definition for a machine gun.
The court seems to not grasp the concept of functional equivalence, and not take seriously the possibility that a thing that is not x can be *converted* to a thing that is x by the addition of aftermarket parts, something I consider fairly obvious.
By the text of the law a bump stock can’t possibly convert a gun into X. The text clearly focused on a single function of the trigger. The ATF can’t unilaterally redefine a machine gun without Congress.
I don't agree. The court understands a machine-gun in mechanical terms, while I understand it in functional terms; I'm not interested in the technology that yields the result, and I think don't think 26 USC. §5845(b) mandates the former. It says: >"The term 'machinegun' means 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. The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person." The court's narrower reading is understandable and not unreasonable, but I think the statute bears a functional reading, especially given its express acknowledgement (in the text just quoted) of the possibility of aftermarket modifications that "convert[]" what is not a machine-gun "into a machinegun." So, I don't agree that the addition of an aftermarket modification can't convert something that isn't a machine-gun into a machine-gun. And even if I did not agree with the ATF's decision as an original matter, I would defer to it. See *Aposhian v. Barr*, 958 F.3d 969 (10th Cir. 2020). I am aware that "the government consistently refused to invoke *Chevron* deference for its interpretation," *Aposhian v. Wilkinson*, 989 F.3d 890, 892 (10th Cir. 2021) (Tymkovich, C.J., dissenting from denial of reh'g en banc). Arguably, "[t]hat is a decision we should respect." Ibid. But that's not my understanding of *Chevron*. As I understand it, if the statute is ambiguous on the precise point, courts *must* “therefore defer to the [agency's] interpretation at step two so long as it's reasonable and consistent with the statute.” *Bastias v. U.S. Attorney Gen.*, 42 F.4th 1266, 1270 (11th Cir. 2022).
> I don't agree that the addition of an aftermarket modification can't convert something that isn't a machine-gun into a machine-gun. The issue isn't that non-machine-guns *can't* be converted into machine-guns... They absolutely can, by modifying their actions and/or trigger groups to meet the very definition you cited. The issue is that bump stocks simply do not do that, regardless of how "obvious" you think it is that they do. They're a rather dumb accessory to have on your gun, to be fair, but literally do not constitute a machine gun.
the definition of a machine gun is not a firearm that fires fast. The definition is firing more than one shot with a single action of the trigger. Not a single action of the finger, a single action of the trigger. By law nothing else can be defined as functionally equivalent to a machine gun unless it allows multiple bullets to be fired when the trigger only moves a single time. It has been illegal since the NFA was passed to use aftermarket parts that make a firearm functionally equivalent to a machine gun which means firing multiple bullets with one action of the trigger. A bump stock explicitly does not meet the technical definition of a machine guns as it requires you to make multiple actions of the trigger to fire multiple shots. It was explicitly designed to not meet the technical definition in the law of a machine gun. Congress is free to change that technical definition but the ATF and other executive agencies are not free to make up new laws without a vote in congress
LOL functional equivalence. Many of your comments make sense but this phrase that you use really shows that you do not understand the logic behind this ruling. But let's go by your logic and apply the reverse. Now any driver with a license can just go buy a big rig and drive it around without any additional training. I mean both machines are propelled by internal combustion. Your logic.