U.S. Supreme Court says Bump Stocks are not machine guns under Federal law, for now.
Garland v. Cargill
Although the Court’s 6-3 opinion in Garland v. Cargill held that bump stocks are not machine guns as defined by Federal law, there is little comfort in the decision. Justice Alito wrote a separate concurrence calling upon Congress to amend its statutory definition of machine guns to include bump stocks.
JUSTICE ALITO, concurring. I join the opinion of the Court because there is simply no other way to read the statutory language. There can be little doubt that the Congress that enacted 26 U. S. C. §5845(b) would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock. But the statutory text is clear, and we must follow it. The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b). But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning. There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.
In the oral argument that took place at the end of February, Justices Gorsuch and Barrett said that bump stocks should be banned. However, whether or not they should be banned was not the question before the court. The question presented to the justices was “Whether a bump stock device is a "machinegun" as defined in 26 U.S.C. 5845(b) because it is designed and intended for use in converting a rifle into a machinegun, i.e., into a weapon that fires "automatically more than one shot * * * by a single function of the trigger.”
Justice Sotomayor filed a dissent, which was joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. In it, 18 pages were devoted to ranting against machine guns, to which they would have included bump stocks in the Federal definition.
Neither Chief Justice Roberts nor Justice Kavanaugh strikes me as being a firearms enthusiast, and Justice Thomas’s limited questioning during the oral argument was not encouraging either.
It is clear now that this lineup of justices is not going to find a right to keep and bear machine guns in the Second Amendment. Nor is there much of a chance of their being replaced by a majority of justices who would find one, not in my lifetime and probably not in yours.
Congress, on the other hand, can decriminalize machine guns as easily as it effectively banned them in 1986. The Red States can get around the ban because the ban isn’t a ban on machine guns per se. The ban is on the Department of Treasury accepting the $200 tax required by law for you or me to take possession of a machine gun manufactured since May of 1986 or not otherwise eligible for transfer to civilians.
Red state governments do not have to pay the Federal tax on machine guns (but they do have to register them). And, of course, Red states have the right to raise and organize militias…and arm their militia men with machine guns.
Here is a link to the opinion.