In a 6-3 decision that might make even your grandfather’s antique rifle raise an eyebrow, the United States Supreme Court ruled on Friday that federal regulators exceeded their authority when they outlawed bump stocks, those curious little devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to imitate the high-speed mayhem of machine guns. The majority opinion, penned by Justice Clarence Thomas, did not so much defend the bump stocks themselves as it did take yet another opportunity to remind everyone that if Congress wanted to ban something, perhaps it should just write a law instead of tossing the task to a federal agency with a knack for creative reinterpretation.
Bump stocks, which soared to grim infamy in 2017 after their use in the Las Vegas mass shooting that left 60 dead and hundreds injured, operate by harnessing recoil and automating the trigger finger with the help of physics and a little elbow grease. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had previously declared in 2010 that bump stocks were perfectly legal under federal law but reversed course in 2018, which, in agency years, is about as sudden as a caffeine withdrawal headache. The Trump administration’s ATF reclassified bump stocks as machine guns, effectively banning them, which Justice Thomas said was a legal leap that could trip over its own shoelaces.
“A semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a ‘machinegun’ because it still fires only one shot for each pull of the trigger,” wrote Thomas, presumably while thumbing through a physics textbook. He added that the trigger must reset each time, much like the nation’s collective tolerance during an election year. Joining Thomas in this reading of federal firearms law were the Court’s other conservative justices, while the dissent, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, accused the majority of ignoring the reality that bump stocks make semi-automatic rifles spray bullets with machine-like enthusiasm.
“Today’s decision to allow the continued sale and possession of bump stocks will have deadly consequences,” wrote Sotomayor, buzzing with judicial frustration rare outside the pages of a very stern legal romance novel.
President Joe Biden, never one to let a Supreme Court decision pass without sighing into a microphone, responded by calling on Congress to step in with actual legislation this time, ideally the sort that does not require decades of interpretive dance to understand. Meanwhile, Second Amendment enthusiasts rejoiced while simultaneously insisting they were not rejoicing, merely celebrating constitutional clarity, with a side of ballistic efficiency.
As for the American public, it appears the bump stock saga may be headed back to the halls of Congress, where legislation goes to nap indefinitely. If nothing else, at least we now know the trigger definition of a machine gun is more complex than most modern dating apps.