Tag: bump stocks

ATF to Return Legal Gun Parts, Leaving 16 Blue State AGs to Suffer a Collective Meltdown

The whole “bump stock” hooraw has been settled, for the time being, following the Trump administration’s settling of a lawsuit brought by the National Association for Gun Rights. These devices, more properly called “forced-reset triggers,” allow for firing a semi-automatic rifle more quickly, at the cost of some accuracy. In the interests of complete reporting, we should note that the action of one of these devices can be duplicated with such readily available things as rubber bands or belt loops. Following the settlement, the ATF has been ordered to return some 100,000 seized devices to their rightful owners.

To summarize, 100,000 pieces of legally owned private property are being returned to their owners.

So, of course, 16 blue state attorneys general are screeching and soiling themselves in terror. They are demanding that these people not be given back their property, and as is typical, they don’t even know what they’re talking about. Consider this, from Colorado’s AG, Phil Weiser:

“The law is clear: Machine guns, and devices that turn a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, are illegal,” Weiser said in a statement. “We’re suing to stop the ATF and the administration from making our communities more dangerous by distributing thousands of devices that turn firearms into weapons of war.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. These are not machine guns, and they cannot turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. With or without a forced-reset trigger, the weapon functions the same: One shot for each trigger pull. The device makes it easier to fire more quickly, but so can a thumb thrust through a belt loop. 

Furthermore, machine guns are not illegal. The supply is restricted, they are very expensive, and one has to go through a defined process to own one, including a background check and payment of a “transfer tax.” But they are not illegal. Given money and patience, any law-abiding citizen can legally own one. Like this guy does.

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Michigan Senate Dems Pass Bump Stock Ban, ‘Ghost Gun’ Regulations

Michigan Senate Democrats in the Judiciary Committee passed bills Thursday that will ban bump stocks and require serialization on so-called “ghost guns.”

WVNEWS reported that state Sen. Dayna Polehanki (D) sponsored SB 224, which is the bump stock ban.

Polehanki described bump stocks as “destructive weapons of war,” adding, “And let me be clear: these are not tools for sport or self-defense. Bump stocks are used to inflict maximum harm in seconds, and their continued availability puts every one of our communities at risk. That’s unacceptable, and it’s time for a change.”

The bills related to so-called “ghost guns” were sponsored by state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D). These pieces of legislation ban “the purchase, possession and distribution of firearms without valid serial numbers.”

McMorrow contended that gun control laws must change as quickly as does the technology to build guns, saying, “Just as rapidly as new weapon production methods emerge and evolve, so too must our laws and public safety efforts. Our communities deserve nothing less.”

More gun control, pushed by state Sen. Rosemary Bayer (D), would ban open and concealed carry on Michigan Capitol grounds and in the Anderson House Office Building.

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Federal Judge Vacates Bump Stock Rule, Recognizes ‘Right to Possess’

Senior United States District Judge David Alan Ezra vacated the ATF’s bump stock ban rule on Monday and recognized plaintiff Michael Cargill’s “right to possess” the device under federal law.

The case is Gargill v. Garland, in the U.S. District for the Western District of Texas.

Cargill secured a favorable ruling against the bump stock ban in this same district court in 2023, however, the court did not provide any means of relief for Cargill. But the New Civil Liberties Alliance noted that once the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against the bump stock ban the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the district’s court denial of Cargill’s motion for relief, instructing the district court “to consider alterations to the judgment or other relief[.]”

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Schumer Seeks Bill to Ban Bump Stocks After Supreme Court Ruling

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on June 14 called for legislation to outlaw bump stocks after the Supreme Court struck down a President Donald Trump-era ban on the gun accessory.

A 6–3 opinion by the high court found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority when it interpreted a federal firearms statute to outlaw the use of bump stocks. Bump stocks are attached to the butt end of a rifle, causing them to fire again by bumping against the finger on recoil.

“As I warned the Trump administration at the time, the only way to permanently close this loophole is through legislation. Senate Democrats are ready to pass legislation to ban bump stocks but we will need votes from Senate Republicans,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement.

The ATF in 2018, with the support of President Trump, reversed its earlier position and declared bump stocks illegal in response to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which a gunman used firearms equipped with bump stocks to fire multiple guns more rapidly, killing 60 and leaving hundreds wounded.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito filed a concurrence on June 14 that emphasized Congress’s role. “There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns,” he said. “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.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,called the Supreme Court decision “deeply disappointing.” 

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Appeals Court Strikes Down Bump Stock Ban in 13-3 Decision

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down a 13-3 decision Friday striking down the regulatory gun control that banned bump stocks under former President Donald Trump.

Reuters reported that the court intimated that actions on guns should be taken by Congress rather than the executive branch.

Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote the majority opinion for the Fifth Circuit and also opined that the framers of the bump stock ban did not provide “fair warning that possession of a non-mechanical bump stock is a crime.”

On December 18, 2018, Breitbart News reported that the ATF finalized the language of its bump stock ban and gave people 90 days to hand the firearm accessories over.

Breitbart News possessed a copy of the DOJ’s summary of the ban at the time, and it stated:

The Department of Justice is amending the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to clarify that bump-stock-type devices-meaning “bump fire” stocks, slide-fire devices, and devices with certain similar characteristics-are “machineguns” as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger.

The summary says a bump stock allows the trigger of a semiautomatic firearm to reset between the firing of each round, but describes the bump stock-equipped “semiautomatic firearm” as “self-acting or self-regulating,” and therefore a “machinegun.”

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Federal Bump Stock Ban Blocked by Divided Appeals Court

The federal ban on bump stocks—devices that increase the rate of fire for semiautomatic weapons—is likely unlawful and must be put on hold, a divided Sixth Circuit said Thursday.

Bump stocks harness a gun’s recoil energy to rapidly move the firearm back and forth, bumping the shooter’s stationary finger against the trigger. In the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, in which a gunman using semiautomatic rifles with bump stocks killed 58 people, President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to quickly ban “all devices that turn legal weapons into machineguns.”

Federal law generally bans civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 1986, including any parts used to convert an otherwise legal firearm into an illegal machine gun. It defines a machine gun as a weapon which fires “automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a rule reinterpreting the terms “single function of the trigger” and “automatically” to ban bump stocks.

The group Gun Owners of America and others sued, claiming the rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, and the 14th Amendment’s right to due process.

A lower court should have granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction against the rule, because they’ll likely be able to prove that the bump stock ban is unlawful, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said.

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