US Appeals Court Rules Bump Stocks Are Not “Machine Guns” 

The federal ban on bump stocks, put in place by the Trump administration, was ruled unlawful by a divided federal appeals court on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. This is a significant win for gun owners who have observed overreaching government clamp down on guns in recent years. 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) first issued the ban on plastic bump stocks that transform semiautomatic firearms into rapid-fire weapons. In December 2018, the ATF classified bump stocks as “machine guns.” The move came after former President Trump ordered his Attorney General to initiate the ban following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. 

How A Bump Stock Works 

The latest ruling from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals grants Gun Owners of America (GOA), a preliminary injunction against the ban, affirming the gun group’s concerns that the federal ban violated the “Administrative Procedure Act, the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, and the 14th Amendment’s right to due process.”

“Today’s court decision is great news and told gun owners what they already knew,” GOA Senior Vice President Erich Pratt said in a statement. “We are glad the court applied the statute accurately and struck down the ATF’s illegal overreach and infringement of gun owners’ rights.”

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Alice Batchelder defended the court’s ruling, claiming that a bump stock attachment on a firearm does not qualify it as a “machine gun,” which the government currently classifies as a “single function of the trigger” (or a semiautomatic firearm). 

“A bump stock may change how the pull of the trigger is accomplished, but it does not change the fact that the semiautomatic firearm shoots only one shot for each pull of the trigger,” Batchelder declared. “With or without a bump stock, a semiautomatic firearm is capable of firing only a single shot for each pull of the trigger.”

While the ATF issued a ban on bump stocks over the last couple of years – the internet won as it appears people just 3D printed these attachments.

… and we wonder what the National Rifle Association will have to say about this ruling after they caved and called for “additional regulations” on “bump fire stocks” in late 2017 following the Las Vegas shooting. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced a ban this week on banning bump stocks.