Fifth Circuit Brief: Semi-Automatic Firearms, ‘Bump Stocks’ Are Not Machine Guns

[Charlie T Waite]

NEW ORLEANS (August 3, 2022) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an important appellate brief, joined by FPC Action Foundation, in the case of Cargill v. Garland, which challenges the ATF’s unconstitutional ban on “bump stock” devices. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

In December 2021, a 3-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban, saying that “the Bump Stock Rule’s interpretation of the NFA’s definition of ‘machinegun’ is the best interpretation of the statute.” Last June, however, the Court ordered that the panel opinion be vacated and that the full Court would review the appeal (known as a rehearing en banc).

“Because virtually all semiautomatic weapons can be bump fired, and because that technique can be aided by myriad common household products or clothing items, ATF’s definition is necessarily overbroad and would eliminate statutory distinctions between less-regulated semiautomatic rifles and handguns, and more-regulated machineguns,” argued FPC and FPCAF in their brief to the en banc Fifth Circuit. “Bump firing, whether aided by a bump stock, a rubber band, or merely a well-controlled finger, is not shooting automatically and the ease with which any given weapon can be bump fired does not turn semiautomatic firearms into heavily regulated machineguns.”

“Federal agencies, including the ATF, have no authority to create new law or change the meaning of statutes,” said FPC Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation, Cody J. Wisniewski. “Nor can the ATF, which calls itself an expert on firearms, intentionally misinterpret straight-forward terms like ‘trigger’ in order to achieve its preferred policy outcomes and ban things the agency and its bosses don’t like. A ‘bump stock’ is not a ‘machinegun’ even if the president says it is.”

“The district court’s ruling was based on a misunderstanding of the way that firearms and ‘bump stocks’ function,” said FPC Action Foundation Director of Constitutional Studies, Joseph Greenlee. “In our brief, we clarify the misconceptions that led to the erroneous lower court decision and explain why the correct understanding compels a ruling in favor of Mr. Cargill.”

[Itchy Trigger]

The ATF itself put out a press release saying that Bump-Stocks were legal, and they had no ability to regulate them. Trump pushing them to change their opinion might have been the biggest mistake he made during his presidency.

 

This was further shown in the recent Supreme Court Ruling "West Virginia v. EPA" which stated that the Executive Branch's overreach by the EPA presented one of the “extraordinary cases” in which “both separation of powers and a practical understanding of legislative intent” made the court “reluctant to read into ambiguous statutory text the delegation claimed to be lurking there.” The Executive Branch (EPA, ATF, etc.) cannot create Defacto laws that Congress has not explicitly given them!