cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15645865
If the Supreme Court rules that bump stocks aren’t machine guns later this summer, it could quickly open an unfettered marketplace of newer, more powerful rapid-fire devices.
The Trump administration, in a rare break from gun rights groups, quickly banned bump stocks after the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert that was the deadliest in U.S. history. In the ensuing years, gun rights groups challenged the underlying rationale that bump stocks are effectively machine guns — culminating in a legal fight now before the Supreme Court.
A machine gun is defined by the NFA of 1934 using very specific terms. Bump stocks do not meet these terms. There is only one way this will shake out.
bump stocks were not a thing when the definition of a machine gun was formally defined.
we have got to introduce a system where we update definitions and laws that are clearly out-of-date, but we all know why this hasn’t happened yet…
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I think the phrase “or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun” will come into play.
It speaks more of intent than the ‘single trigger pull’. If your intent is to turn a semi-automatic into a functional full-automatic, this would be the phrase that makes that gun a “machinegun”.
We will have to see how it plays out in court.
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Same as using a belt loop
Law is weird. Sometimes courts rule according to the letter of the law, but often courts rule according to the “intention” of the law. There’s often a difference between what a law says and what it really intended.
I mean it’s pretty clear that a law regulating machine guns is meant to affect any firearm that can achieve rapid automatic firing. Lawyers are not engineers or fortune tellers, they should not have to make many mechanical distinctions, and they cannot predict what technologies might be developed in the future. The point of the law is not to regulate mechanical methodology or inner workings, it’s meant to regulate the ultimate functionality of a firearm and the resulting outcomes. Judges and Lawyers understand this and they will sometimes (but not always) make rulings accordingly.
Practicality/public safety aside, I was always skeptical of the actual legal grounds of bans/potential bans on things like the bump stock ban, forced reset triggers, etc. Not too surprised by this, the law says one shot per trigger pull so neither of the devices technically violate that rule.
Don’t get me wrong, I think people should at least be required to pass a background check and get special training for stuff like this, but I also think the NFA is kind of crazy and has a lot of arbitrary rules that don’t make anyone safer (like what is and isn’t a short barrelled rifle, suppressors, etc.)
Not too surprised by this, the law says one shot per trigger pull so neither of the devices technically violate that rule.
That law doesn’t say that. It says this:
"by a single function of the trigger. "
And this is where the legal arguments are sitting in court. Is the “single function”:
- the action of the operator moving their finger, causing the trigger to be moved
or
- the trigger releasing the sear to cause the hammer/bolt to drop, and then resetting
Various courts have ruled if the written rule means the first or the second. Under a single definition bump stocks would be allowed, on the other, they are not allowed.
Regulate bullets
Bump stocks are irrelevant. Machine guns aren’t even illegal to possess in the US
This isn’t even remotely true. You can own a machine gun in the US, you just need to fill out the proper paperwork and pay the tax. What you can’t do in the US is make new machine guns, which is why bump stocks were controversial because it allowed a person to get around the law and operate a firearm in a manner similar to a machinegun yet still be registered as a semiautomatic.
