Bump stock
In December 2018, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) published a rule that bump stocks constituted "machine guns", and thus were effectively illegal under federal law.
[1] By 2018, bump fire stocks in the United States were sold for around $100 and up, with prices increasing prior to enactment of federal regulation.
[14] Bump stocks are banned in California, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, according to Everytown for Gun Safety as of June 14, 2024.
[20] Such bump stocks have no internal spring and require the shooter to use their support hand to maintain constant forward pressure on the front of the rifle in order to achieve continuous fire.
[25][26] Bump stocks remained illegal for nearly all US civilians until the regulation was struck down on June 14, 2024, by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Garland v. Cargill.
Immediately following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, 72% of registered voters supported a bump stock ban, including 68% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats, according to a Morning Consult poll.
[27] After the Parkland shooting, a 2018 NPR/Ipsos poll found that 81% of American adults supported and 62% strongly favored banning bump stocks with a margin of error of ±3.5 percentage points.
[28] Another poll, by CBS News, around the same time, found that 56% of American adults supported banning bump stocks with a margin of error of ±4 percentage points.
Instead, on February 20, 2018, six days after the Parkland shooting, President Trump instructed the ATF to issue regulations to treat bump stocks as machine guns.
[32] President Donald Trump blamed former President Barack Obama for having "legalized bump stocks", which he termed a "BAD IDEA",[33] a claim which was found to be partly erroneous by USA Today, with an ATF official involved in the decision saying neither Obama nor then-Attorney General Eric Holder advised the agency on its ruling and a constitutional law professor explaining that the administration did not possess the legal authority to ban the sale of the devices.
[34] On March 23, 2018, at President Trump's request[33] the Department of Justice announced a plan to ban bump stocks at the federal level.
The proposed change would reclassify bump stocks as "machine guns" and effectively[Note 1] ban the devices in the United States under existing federal law.
[26] The ban went into effect on March 26, 2019, by which owners of bump stocks were required to destroy or surrender them to the ATF, punishable by up to a $250,000 fine and/or prison sentences of up to ten years.
[26][37] On June 14, 2024, the 2018 final rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was vacated by the Supreme Court of the United States in the decision for Garland v. Cargill (2024).
[12] In March 2018, following the Parkland high school shooting, Florida enacted SB 7026, which, among other things, banned bump stocks.
[67] The majority decision, written by Judge Alice M. Batchelder and joined by Judge Eric E. Murphy, ruled that (1) an agency's interpretation of a criminal statute is not entitled to Chevron deference, (2) bump stocks cannot be classified as machineguns, thus the ATF's rule is not the best interpretation of the law, and (3) the plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their challenge, therefore the district court should have granted an injunction.
[67][68][69] Judge Helene White dissented, writing that the Supreme Court had previously applied Chevron deference to agency interpretations of criminal statutes in the cases of Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon and United States v.
[73] The Firearms Policy Coalition and other gun-rights groups sued in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., also seeking an injunction.
[74] In February 2019, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich denied the Firearms Policy Coalition's request for an injunction, determining that the group had not put forward convincing legal arguments that the ban was invalid.
Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction in a per curiam decision, based largely on Chevron deference.
"[80] The case then returned to the district court on the merits, and in February 2021, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the government, holding that Chevron deference applied; that ATF had the authority to state that the NFA's definition of "machinegun" includes bump stocks; and that ATF's interpretation of the statutory language was reasonable.
[87][88] In March 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit granted a temporary stay that applies only to the plaintiff,[89] but ultimately upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction.
[100][101][102][103] In the latter case, the court held that the ATF Final Rule banning bump stocks "was promulgated pursuant to the police power to protect public safety and therefore not a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment.
[106] The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case on 19 January 2023, and ruled on 25 April 2023, that bump stocks are not machineguns.
[109] The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on 7 September 2021, that a bump stock does not fall under the definition of a machinegun.
[116] Survivors of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting sued bump stock patent holder and manufacturer Slide Fire Solutions, claiming the company was negligent and that they deliberately attempted to evade U.S. laws regulating automatic weapons: "this horrific assault would not and could not have occurred, with a conventional handgun, rifle, or shotgun, of the sort used by law-abiding responsible gun owners for hunting or self defense.
