Sixth Circuit Strikes Down Bump Stock Ban
BY Herschel Smith
1 year, 7 months ago
Always remember that you have Trump to thank for the bump stock ban, and the corollary empowered ATF making law out of whole cloth.
Just today, the Sixth Circuit struck down the bump stock ban. Two of the judges decided in favor of the plaintiffs because of the doctrine of lenity. I disagree with that. I think the law is very clear and adding a piece of plastic to a rifle doesn’t convert it to a machine gun under the statutory language. The third judge said it better.
But I would go further. As explained by Judge Murphy in Gun Owners of America, Inc. v. Garland, the best reading of the statute is that Congress never gave the ATF “the power to expand the law banning machine guns through [the] legislative shortcut” of the ATF’s rule at issue in this appeal, see Bump-Stock-Type Devices, 83 Fed. Reg. 66,514 (Dec. 26, 2018) (the Rule). See 19 F.4th at 910 (Murphy, J., dissenting). Simply put, under the statute as it currently reads, the addition of a bump stock to a rifle clearly does not make it a machinegun.
26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). Under this definition, a bump stock cannot be a machinegun part because a bump stock by itself cannot increase the rate of fire of a rifle, nor does it change the mechanics of a “single function of the trigger.”
Here is Mark Smith celebrating the victory.
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