Joe Biden counted on the ATF being loyal foot soldiers for his radical agenda.
But he was thrown a curveball that he never expected.
And the ATF made one shocking confession that Joe Biden is going to hate.
By Justin Gorham
The Supreme Court strikes down the bump stock ban
A bump stock was a little-known firearms accessory before the 2017 Las Vegas Route 91 tragedy. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, allegedly used them during his rampage, which became the deadliest mass shooting in American history. That put bump stocks into the national spotlight and at the center of the latest battle over gun control. In a rush to do something after the tragedy, the Department of Justice issued a rule that “bump-stock-type devices” were considered machine guns under federal law, making them illegal under the Hughes Amendment.
Bump stocks don’t create machine guns. Their use on semiautomatic weapons still requires a trigger pull to fire a round. And the ban was an unconstitutional attempt to change the law through executive power without getting Congress to sign off on it. Gun rights groups challenged the rule in court. After years of working its way through the justice system, the bump stock finally made its way to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court struck down the bump stock ban in a 6-3 decision in the case Garland v. Cargill. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion for the court. The ruling said that a bump stock didn’t turn a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun.
“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 semiautomatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—converts the rifle into a ‘machinegun.’ We hold that it does not and therefore affirm,” Thomas wrote.
ATF Association said bump stocks didn’t create machine guns in 2017
The Supreme Court’s decision echoed the reasoning in a 2017 letter from the ATF Association, a group made up of active and retired members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). ATF Association President Michael Bouchard wrote a letter to Congress during the height of the debate over bump stocks, arguing that it was Congress’ job to take action against, not the ATF by fiat.
“The National Firearms Act of 1934, Title 26 U.S.C. 5845(b) defines a ‘machine gun’ as any combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon to shoot automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. ATF also holds that any item that can cause a firearm to fire more than one shot by the single function of the trigger is also regulated as a machine gun,” the letter stated.
“The Las Vegas killer used a “bump slide” accessory that attaches to the stock of a semi-automatic rifle and enhances the rate at which the shooter can pull the trigger on the firearm. This increases the rate of fire close to that of an actual machine gun. However, under the current law, it does not make it a machine gun,” the letter continued.
The bump stock ban was a rushed attempt to do something in the aftermath of a tragedy. Using executive power to get by Congress opened the door for other attacks on the Second Amendment. The ATF used similar reasoning to try to ban forced rest triggers. Giving the gun grabbers an inch lets them eventually take a mile.
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