Those TTAG readers who have followed the issue of bump stocks and banning the devices will likely recall that in mid-June the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the ban implemented during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
In the 6-3 decision, the court ruled that a bump stock does not magically turn a semi-automatic firearm into a “machine gun,” which could be regulated under the Gun Control Act.
Unlike some recent gun-rights cases before the Supreme Court, this case did not involve the Second Amendment right to bear arms but a federal law that defines a machine gun as any weapon that can fire “more than one shot,” “automatically,” and “by a single function of the trigger.”
In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explained that each time a shooter fires a rifle, the shooter must “release pressure from the trigger and allow it to reset before re-engaging the trigger for another shot.” The bump stock, he wrote, “merely reduces the amount of time that elapses between separate ‘functions’ of the trigger” by allowing the shooter to quickly press the trigger again.
