Bump Stock Guns Are Legal Says U.S. Supreme Court

The recent (June 14, 2024) ruling in Garland et al. v. Cargill by the U.S. Supreme Court, holding that a bump stock modification of a semi-automatic rifle did not convert the gun into an illegal machine gun, is easily misunderstood.

The ruling did not, as some have said, make machine guns legal.  It did not broaden the Second Amendment.  In fact, the Second Amendment is not mentioned once throughout the decision.

To understand the ruling, one must start with understanding what is a machine gun.  Under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (passed following the era of Al Capone and other mafia-type criminals), a “machine gun” is “any weapon which is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manually reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”  26 U.S.C. § 5845(b).  In other words, a shooter can send multiple rounds down range with a single pull of the gun’s trigger.

With a bump stock, a clever device added to a rifle, the shooter is able to use the gun’s recoil from one shot to slide the firearm back and away from the shooter’s trigger finger.  The trigger is released and reset for the next shot.  The shooter uses his non-trigger hand to maintain pressure on the rifle’s front grip.  The forward pressure causes the rifle to move forward and “bump” the shooter’s trigger finger, reengaging the trigger and causing the rifle to fire another shot without the shooter deliberately pulling on the trigger.  The trigger is released and reengaged to fire by the bump stock.

After the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the use of a bump stock became more publicly understood because the shooter there used several semi-automatic rifles affixed with the bump stocks to fire hundreds of rounds into a crowd to kill fifty-eight people and wound over five hundred.  

In response, in 2018, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) amended its regulations to add, at 83 Fed. Reg. 66514, to § 5845(b) language to clarify that bump stocks would be considered automatic weapons and demanded that all owners either destroy or surrender them to ATF within 90 days to avoid criminal prosecution.

Michael Cargill surrendered two bump stocks to the ATF under protest and challenged its new rule under the Administrative Procedure Act.  Mr. Cargill argued that the ATF lacked statutory authority because bump stocks are not machine guns as defined under the National Firearms Act.

The Fifth Circuit agreed with Mr. Cargill based on a textual reading of the National Firearms Act and the ATF appealed.

The U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion, affirmed the Fifth Circuit.  It agreed that the National Firearms Act bans machine guns, defined as any weapon which shoots, or is designed to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading and by single function of the trigger.

The U.S. Supreme Court found that bump stocks do not fall under the definition.  The country’s highest court emphasized that in order to fire multiple rounds using a bump stock-equipped semi-automatic weapon, the shooter is required to maintain forward pressure on the rifle’s grip.  This pressure constitutes an additional action and therefore rendered the gun “not automatic.”  

The U.S. Supreme Court further noted that “bump firing” is possible without a bump stock, and the ATF agreed that bump firing a semi-automatic rifle without a bump stock does not transform the rifle into a machine gun, indicating that adding the device designed to aid in bump firing would likewise not transform the rifle into a machine gun. 

We at Greg Hill & Associates appreciate this ruling.  Greg Hill is a former Marine, having served over seven years of active duty from 1987 to 1994.  While in the Marine Corps, although an aviator, he did have the experience of firing a machine gun, so he knows what it feels like and, basically, how it operates.  He also fired semi-automatic weapons, so he knows the difference between a machine gun and a semi-automatic weapon.