Supreme Court appears divided over ban on bump stocks issued under Trump

The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday over whether the Trump administration acted lawfully in issuing a ban on bump stocks after one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

The justices appeared largely divided along ideological lines on the ban, which prohibits the sale and possession of bump stocks, attachments that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire at speeds comparable to machine guns. Some expressed concern about the broader implications of a reversal.

The case is not about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Instead, it is one of a number of challenges aimed at limiting the power of administrative agencies – in this case the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A decision is expected at the end of June.

After a gunman on the 32nd floor of a hotel suite opened fire at a country music festival in Las Vegas in 2017, a ban on bump stocks gained political attention, one of the few gun control pieces of legislation that sparked significant debate. Justice Department officials initially said the executive branch could not ban the accessory without congressional action. But eventually they reversed course and imposed a ban on their own.

The question is whether a bump stock falls within the legal definition of a machine gun. If the court finds that a bump stock can be used to turn a weapon into a “machine gun,” it could be banned as part of a category heavily regulated by the ATF

During less than two hours of discussion, the justices appeared to have difficulty understanding how gun triggers work and the value of a ban to gun owners and the broader public.

“Look, intuitively, I am completely sympathetic to your argument,” Judge Amy Coney Barrett told the lawyer representing the government, Brian H. Fletcher. “I mean, it looks like this functions like a machine gun would.”

But she also wondered aloud why Congress hadn’t enacted legislation more explicitly covering such devices.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, one of the court’s most conservative members, seemed to agree. He said that while he “could certainly understand why these items should be made illegal,” he did not see why an administrative agency, rather than Congress, should be the one to act.

The remaining conservatives at court seemed splintered. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who often sits at the center of the court and may have a crucial voice in the case, asked few questions and provided little insight into his position.

The three liberal justices appeared to be united in their support for the government’s decision to ban the device, repeatedly raising hypotheticals about the bump stock and how it enabled semiautomatic weapons to fire a “stream of bullets.” to fire.

The Justice Department’s abrupt change in direction seemed to alarm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

If the device was “obviously something new, covered by this old statutory language, you would expect the Bush administration and the Obama administration and Senator Feinstein to say that obviously it’s covered, and they didn’t,” Judge Kavanaugh said . , which mentioned Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died in September and was one of the most notable critics of bump stocks. “And that’s reason for a pause.”

The challenge was presented by Michael Cargill, a Texas gun store owner who sold bump stocks. He is represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal advocacy group with financial ties to Charles Koch, a billionaire who has long supported conservative and libertarian causes. The group focuses primarily on what it considers unlawful uses of administrative power.

Jonathan F. Mitchell, the lawyer who argued on behalf of Mr. Cargill to overturn the ban on bump stocks, argued that there may be “a valid reason” to allow bump stocks because they can help people with disabilities or arthritis help with shooting.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor quickly responded: “Why would even a person with arthritis, why would Congress think he had to shoot 400 to 7 or 800 rounds of ammunition under any circumstance?”

Some conservative justices, most notably Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, raised concerns about how the ban would affect people who bought bump stocks before the accessories were banned.

Under the federal ban, possession or sale of bump stocks can result in jail time. Those who sold or owned bump stocks at the time of the ban were asked to surrender or destroy them.

Judge Alito asked Mr. Fletcher what would happen to people who have had bump stocks in the years since the ban, including those who live in the part of the country where a federal appeals court overturned the ban.

“Can they be prosecuted?” Judge Alito asked.

When Mr. Fletcher responded “probably yes,” Judge Alito quickly responded, “Isn’t that disturbing?”

“That will ensnare many people who are unaware of the legal prohibition,” Judge Kavanaugh said.

Mr. Fletcher’s response, that the agency had completed the required steps to notify the public of the ban, drew a sarcastic response from Judge Gorsuch.

Most Americans undoubtedly spent their free time perusing the Federal Register, the publication in which the government records proposed rules, the judge said. He added wryly that “gun owners all over the country” were sure they would “break it open next to the fire and the dog.”

Mr Fletcher wryly noted that the ban had “not gone unnoticed” by gun enthusiasts, citing the many legal challenges that followed.

Machine guns were banned under the National Firearms Act of 1934, which defines the firearm as “any weapon that fires, is designed to fire, or can be easily repaired to fire more than one shot automatically, without manual reloading, by a single function . of the trigger.” The definition was expanded by the Gun Control Act of 1968 to include parts that can be used to convert a weapon into a machine gun.

But until the Trump administration’s ban, bump stocks were an exception, considered legal on the grounds that they increased the velocity of a weapon by sliding the stock back and forth to quickly pull the trigger, and not by “a single function of the trigger” as required for a machine gun.

The judges did not appear to share a common understanding of the bump stock and how exactly it worked. Several seemed to be puzzling through the mechanisms. Judge Kagan gestured with her arms and hands as she tried to show she understood how the device transformed a weapon.

Nor did they have a uniform interpretation of whether the bump stock changed the function of a trigger on semiautomatic weapons, which are designed to fire a round with each pull of the trigger.

The technical parts of the argument focused on the wording of the law, particularly key terms such as “automatic” and “single function of the trigger.”

Mr Mitchell argued that the judges should interpret the law narrowly, meaning it would not apply to bump stocks.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Alito both interacted at length with the attorneys, pressing them on how to interpret the statute.

Judge Alito appeared to support Mr. Mitchell’s argument that the ban went too far because the device itself does not physically touch and move a gun’s trigger mechanism.

Judge Jackson seemed skeptical of that argument. She seemed more supportive of the government’s argument that the device could be banned because of its practical effect on a weapon, which greatly increases the speed and number of bullets it can fire.

Judge Kagan seemed to agree.

“I mean, maybe you could use the device differently, but the whole point of this device is that you apply forward pressure and you keep your finger on the trigger, and then a barrage of bullets shoots out,” she said.