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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week on the proper classification of bump stocks, but it made a more significant ruling that further expanded the court’s view of gun owners’ rights.
The question is whether there is a collision A stock – an attachment to the standard stock of a semi-automatic rifle that uses recoil to strike the shooter’s trigger finger and fire bullets in rapid succession – turning the semi-automatic rifle into a disabled machine gun. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) previously believed that semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks were not machine guns until they were used to kill 58 people in Las Vegas in October 2017. The ATF reversed course and subsequently classified bump stocks along with machine guns as part of the National Firearms Act and ordered anyone in possession of bump stocks to destroy or surrender them to avoid criminal prosecution.
According to the National Firearms Act, a machine gun is any weapon that fires continuously after the shooter pulls the trigger, thus defining a machine gun as any weapon designed to fire multiple rounds without reloading and simply by pulling the trigger. . The machine gun/stock issue was further obscured by the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which expanded the definition of a machine gun to include parts that could convert the weapon into a machine gun.
The case before the Supreme Court stemmed from an ATF law enforcement operation that seized bump stocks from Michael Cargill, the owner of a central Texas gun factory. Cargill, a veteran, is suing the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for overstepping its authority by enforcing a ban that was not enacted by Congress, forcing him to hand over two bumper pads at a protest. Garland v. Cargill has made its way through the court system and reached the Supreme Court in February via an amicus brief filed by the Constitutional Accountability Center (the petitioner in the case is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland).
This leaves the Supreme Court with the responsibility of defining what a single pull of the trigger is. Their decision was based on the argument that there is a difference between a shooter bending his finger to pull the trigger and a shooter pushing the gun forward to bump the trigger against a fixed finger. The court subsequently ruled 6-3 that bump stocks were not in the same category as machine guns and therefore should not fall within the ban imposed by the National Firearms Act.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: “A semiautomatic firearm is not a machine gun and the shooter is required to re-pulse the trigger each time he fires. This case asks about bump stocks, a type of semiautomatic rifle. Accessory that allows the shooter to quickly re-trigger) can convert a rifle into a machine gun We believe this is not the case.
“When I see a bird walk like a duck, swim like a duck, quack like a duck, I call that bird a Duck. Since I, like Congress, call this a machine gun, I would object to a semi-automatic rifle that fires multiple rounds automatically with the single function of the trigger.
Despite the ruling and what finally emerged as a broader view on gun rights, there was little reaction from the industry in trading on Sturm, Ruger shares on Friday.NYSE:RGR), Smith & Wesson (SWBI), Vista Outdoor (VSTO) and American Outdoor Brands (AOUT) all ended with losses.
