In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority when it issued a rule classifying firearms equipped with bump stocks as machine guns. The case, Garland v. Cargill, challenged the ban enacted following the 2017 Las Vegas concert mass shooting, which the ATF implemented by interpreting a federal law restricting the transfer or possession of machine guns to include bump stocks.
“Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. “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.”
