Feel free to tell us if that’s good or bad for conservatives LOL
The Hammonds case is probably bad for conservatives since it was a win for the government.
Below is a comment from Scotusblog attorney, Amy Howe, in regards to the bump stock ban decision. Sotomayor is apparently NOT happy. LOL
“The question in this case is whether a bumpstock (an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger to fire very quickly) converts the rifle into a machinegun. The court holds that it does not.
This is *not* a Second Amendment case, but instead a statutory interpretation case — whether a bumpstock meets the statutory definition of a machinegun. The ATF in 2018 issued a rule, contrary to its earlier guidance that bumpstocks did not qualify as machineguns, defining bumpstocks as machineguns and ordering owners of bumpstocks to destroy them or turn them over to the ATF within 90 days.
Sotomayor is now reading from her dissent, which is a relatively rare occurrence.
The Thomas opinion explains that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” because it does not fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger” as the statute requires.
Alito has a concurring opinion in which he says that he joins the court’s opinion because there “is simply no other way to read the statutory language. There can be little doubt,” he writes, “that the Congress that enacted” the law at issue here “would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bumpstock. But the statutory text is clear, and we must follow it.”
Alito suggests that Congress “can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation.”
In her dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson, Sotomayor write that “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
The ATF rule was promulgated in the wake of the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. Sotomayor writes that the “majority’s artificially narrow definition hamstrings the Government’s efforts to keep machineguns from gunmen like the Las Vegas shooter.”
Sotomayor has now finished reading from her dissent, and the justices have adjourned. The marshal announced Thursday as the next opinion session (there were no bar admissions because today’s session was added to the court’s calendar relatively late in the game).”
RE Sotomayor’s comments, what if she calls the bird a duck but it’s actually a woodpecker? Gosh, that lady is ignorant!