Free Republic

Bump stocks are not machine guns. Not only are they not machine guns in the legal definition, but they are significantly different from machine guns in other ways as well.In the recent Supreme Court decision on Garland v Cargill, Justice Clarance Thomas wrote:A semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” as defined by §5845(b) because: (1) it cannot fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger” and (2) even if it could, it would not do so “automatically.” Far left VOX claimed Thomas was lying. From Vox.com:The six Republican justices handed down...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pushing a unanimous consent vote on a bump stock ban for the purposes of using Republican opposition to paint the GOP as favoring mass shooters, according to a source on Capitol Hill. A unanimous consent vote can be blocked with one Republican in opposition, and that one Republican vote is what Democrats would highlight to then claim Republicans as a whole are against stopping mass shootings, against keeping Americans safe, etc. Sen. J.D. Vance (R) called out Schumer for pressing for votes on “fake problems” instead of taking up serious issues that the...

The six Republican justices handed down a decision on Friday that effectively legalizes civilian ownership of automatic weapons. All three of the Court’s Democrats dissented. The Court’s decision in Garland v. Cargill involves bump stocks, devices that allow ordinary semiautomatic weapons that can legally be owned by civilians to automatically fire, much like a machine gun designed for that purpose. Bump stocks cause a semiautomatic gun’s trigger to buck against the shooter’s finger, repeatedly “bumping” the trigger and making the gun rapidly fire. A semiautomatic weapon refers to a gun that loads a bullet into the chamber or otherwise prepares...

U.S. — In one of the most remarkable miracles in human history, the thousands of bump stocks that went missing seven years ago in boating accidents all simultaneously washed ashore and have been reunited with their owners. "Wow, my bump stock washed ashore! And just a day after the Supreme Court ruling overturning the ban!" said local man Omar Gonzales. "What's even crazier, my neighbor Bill also lost his in a boating accident in 2017, and his bump stock also washed ashore this morning. It's a miracle!" Across the nation, tens of thousands of Americans reported similar shocking experiences. "It's...

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a federal ban on bump stocks approved by former President Donald Trump, the latest opinion from the conservative court rolling back firearm regulations. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for a 6-3 court. The court’s liberal wing, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented. Trump had pushed for the ban in response to a 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas. Bump stocks allow a shooter to convert a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute.

Justice Samuel Alito on Friday asserted that Congress could amend the law to successfully ban bump stocks in an opinion concurring with the Supreme Court’s decision Friday to invalidate a Trump-era ban on the devices. The ban on bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, was implemented by the Trump administration in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, where a shooter used a bump stock to kill a total of 60 people and wound hundreds of others — the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The Biden administration later defended the...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a challenge to a federal ban on "bump stock" devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns, dealing a setback to yet another firearms restriction — one enacted under Republican former President Donald Trump. The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, upheld a lower court's decision siding with Michael Cargill, a gun shop owner and gun rights advocate from Austin, Texas, who challenged the ban by claiming that a U.S. agency improperly interpreted a federal law banning machine guns as extending to bump stocks. The conservative justices were...

Two gun controls, one of which was a bump stock ban, were defeated in the Pennsylvania House on Tuesday despite a rally by activists and pro-gun control lawmakers. WGAL reported every Republican and one Democrat, state Rep. Frank Burns (D), voted against the bump stock ban. A gun control requiring federal firearms license holders (FFLS) to report sales electronically was defeated as well.

Questions asked by Supreme Court justices Wednesday indicated that the ATF's ban on bump stocks will probably not survive. While justices agreed that the government had the authority to ban bump stocks and that they functioned in a way that duplicated the performance covered in the 1934 Firearms Act that limited possession of fully automatic weapons, the six conservative justices seemed inclined to strike down the ATF rule because bump stocks do not function in the way specified in the law and because the government admitted that anyone possessing a bump stock purchased before the ATF rule or after a...

And with the obnoxious valley girl "WHAT EVER" Jackson shows her disdain for our CONSTITUTION and for KNOWING anything about the topic at hand. Twice, she says that bump stocks shoot 800 rounds/sec. And NO ONE corrects her. Does she even know what a woman is yet? MORON!

US Supreme Court justices grappled with the mechanics of bump stocks on Wednesday as they weighed whether to lift a ban on the gun accessory. Fitting a bump stock to a rifle enables the weapon to fire hundreds of bullets per minute. The Trump administration banned the devices by classifying them as machine guns after they were used in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Under the 1986 National Firearms Act, owning a machine gun is illegal. But a Texas resident and gun shop owner Michael Cargill has challenged the ban on bump stocks, saying the government has interpreted...

WASHINGTON –U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) introduced the ATF Accountability Act, which would provide transparency to gun owners across America on rules made by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The ATF engages in a secretive classification review process where the agency decides whether a particular firearm is regulated by the National Firearms Act and refuses to make final public rules regarding classification. The ATF’s lack of transparency creates significant uncertainty for both gun-owning Americans and firearm manufacturers. “The ATF’s ability to designate firearms behind closed doors puts law abiding...

In what is likely to become a landmark case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in an en banc decision of all the judges in the circuit, struck down the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule which changed the definition of a machinegun to include bump stocks. Thirteen judges were in the majority, with three judges dissenting. The case is Cargill v. Garland. This correspondent wrote about it previously. Here is a summation of how the sixteen judges ruled. From the opinion: Of the sixteen members of our court, thirteen of us agree...

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 October 3, 2022, the Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari to two promising bump stock cases, one in the Tenth Circuit, another in the Sixth Circuit. The appeals process for those two cases is finished.Another bump stock case Cargill v. Garland, is in the Fifth Circuit and may tip the balance. It’s being considered en banc and is a well-argued and supported case.The case was filed on March 25, 2019, originally titled Cargill v. Barr.In all three cases, the arguments are not about the Second Amendment. They are about the ability of bureaucrats to make law and the...

On October 3, 2022, it was revealed the Supreme Court refused to review two cases challenging the rule implementing a bump stock ban put in place by the ATF at the request of President Donald Trump. The two cases which had been appealed to the Supreme Court were distributed for conference where decisions are made to hear the case (grant a writ of certiorari) or not on September 12. Both had been rescheduled earlier in the year. Both cases were denied as of October 3, 2022.The appeals process for the bump stock ban has ended.The two cases were: Aposhian v....

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- Bump stocks have faded from the headlines. Most in the firearms community have been outraged that a federal administrative agency could make such a radical change in the law, as to ban items the agency previously ruled were perfectly legal, without any action by Congress or the President. In the Tenth Circuit, a legal challenge has been percolating. On March 26 of 2018, the BATFE reversed its previous rulings on bump stocks and issued a rule change that bump stocks would be considered automatic firearms. Over half a million bump stocks had been legally sold and owned. The...

Automatic weapons are unicorns in the gun world. Every gun owners want ones. But thanks to the circus known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, most automatic weapons and machineguns are prohibitively expensive. And with the recent ban on the bumpstock (even though the bumpstock doesn’t even meet the ATF’s definition of a machinegun) what is a freedom-loving gun owner to do? When you tire of laboriously emptying magazines with one trigger squeeze, when the Mad Minutes get boring, where do you go next? The Gat Crank might be the answer. The beauty of the Gat Crank is...

In 2019, in response to a single criminal act, faced with intense media pressure, resulting in political pressure, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, (BATFE) moved to ban bump stocks. They did so, claiming bump stocks were machine guns, contrary to numerous findings they had made over the last several decades. The new regulation was challenged in the courts. The first case to be appealed to the Supreme Court was filed in the District of Columbia. On 2 March, 2020, the Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari, the legal term to say they declined to hear the...

WASHINGTON - - The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal of the federal ban on bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic firearms to fire rapidly like machine guns. The justices did not comment in declining to review a lower court-ruling that upheld the ban, which took effect nearly a year ago. President Donald Trump said that the government would move to ban bump stocks, following a 2017 shooting in Las Vegas in which a gunman attached bump stocks to assault-style rifles he used to shoot concertgoers from his hotel room. By using the devices, which allow shots to be...