Supreme Court Stands Up for Gun Rights

The Supreme Court ruled on an important gun rights issue. Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion that the ATF’s ban on bump-stocks was unconstitutional. Bump stocks are a device that can make rapid firing of semi-automatic firearms easier, but does not convert the gun into a machine gun.

Donald Trump agreed to pass the ban on bump stocks following the mass shooting in Las Vegas. The shooter’s motives were never officially found, nor how he acquired and moved so many rifles. The NY Times reports:

Under the National Firearms Act of 1934, Congress outlawed machine guns, defined 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.” That definition was expanded under the Gun Control Act of 1968 to include parts that can be used to convert a weapon into a machine gun.

Until the Trump administration enacted its ban, bump stocks were considered legal; under an earlier interpretation of the law, they increase the speed of a gun by sliding the stock back and forth to rapidly pull the trigger, not by “a single function of the trigger” as required for a machine gun.

Bump stocks have limited applications, mostly for entertainment shooting rather than actual self defense. Law enforcement and the military are trained to not use the automatic function on their assault rifles. Fox News says:

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Congress has long restricted access to “‘machinegun[s],'” a category of firearms defined by the ability to “shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger.” 

“Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns. This case asks whether a bump stock—an accessory for a semi- automatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—con- verts the rifle into a ‘machinegun.’ We hold that it does not,” he wrote. 

This is a great blow against the Federal government’s administrative regulations, and a win for gun rights and the rule of law. Trump’s own record on bump stocks will probably be buried, as Joe Biden is a much greater threat to gun rights in the country.

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