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Conservatives on the Supreme Court pressed the Biden administration Wednesday to justify a federal ban on bump stocks, devices that turn semiautomatic rifles into weapons that can fire faster.
But after 90 minutes of arguments in the high-profile dispute, the court appeared to be sharply divided on whether to dismiss the case.
The bump stock ban, approved during former President Donald Trump’s administration, was created in response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. In the mass shooting, a gunman armed with a bump stock device later opened fire during the concert, killing 58 people.
Trump’s nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, worried that the ban would “trap” Americans who were unaware of it.
Kavanaugh told lawyers representing the Biden administration that he could be convicted even if he was unaware of the legal prohibitions. “That would involve a lot of people who are not legally prohibited.”
Although the appeal does not involve the Second Amendment, the thorny debate over guns is once again on the Supreme Court’s radar as the nation continues to be reeled from mass shootings. The case is also the latest of several important cases this year that will give the court’s 6-3 conservative majority an opportunity to limit the power of federal agencies.
Key takeaways from oral argument include:
Barrett and Gorsuch suggest Congress needs to approve ban
One of the central topics of discussion was whether Congress, rather than the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, should have approved the ban.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she was “sympathetic” to the Biden administration’s defense of the bump stock ban, but was concerned about a federal agency deciding the issue unilaterally.
The ATF reclassified the device as a machine gun in 2018. That means, in most cases, the same decades-old laws banning those weapons would apply to the device.
“Intuitively, I totally agree with your argument. I mean, this seems to work the same way as a machine gun,” Barrett said.
But it raised questions about why Congress didn’t pass a bill to “cover this more clearly,” she added.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, a fellow Trump nominee, also pursued the issue, noting that several past administrations had concluded they lacked authority to reclassify the device as a machine gun.
“I certainly understand why these items have to be made illegal, but we’re dealing with a law that was passed in the 1930s,” Gorsuch said. “And through many administrations, the government has taken the position that these bump stocks are not machine guns.”
The court’s liberals seemed more convinced that the device was within the intent of Congress in banning machine guns.
Justice Elena Kagan urged the court to use “common sense” when deciding the case.
Kagan said the device “goes to the heart of what Congress was concerned about” when banning machine guns. “It refers to something that can fire a gun.”
Biden administration lawyers defending the ban repeatedly reminded the justices of the 2017 Las Vegas massacre, the event that led to the ban being struck down several years ago.
“After the Las Vegas shooting, the deadliest mass shooting in our nation’s history, I believe it was irresponsible of the ATF to not take another hard look at this previous interpretation…and We could not have considered it more carefully,” Brian Fletcher said in the article. In response to Gorsuch’s question about why the ban was not codified by Congress and instead issued by a federal agency.
Just before closing arguments, Fletcher returned to the main topic, saying that Congress enacted the Prohibition-era laws in question regarding guns that existed at the time and “other types of devices that may be created in the future.” “I think so,” he said in court. Please do the same. ”
“This law was enacted and strengthened because we did not want the public or our law enforcement officers to face the dangers of a weapon that can fire or eject many bullets in one action.” said Fletcher. “As the Las Vegas shooting clearly illustrates, that’s exactly what bump stocks do.”
Justice Samuel Alito asked the attorney representing ban challenger Michael Cargill if he could imagine why lawmakers could ban machine guns but not bullets.
“Bump stocks can help people with disabilities, people with manual dexterity issues, and people with arthritis in their fingers. There are good reasons to keep these devices legal as a matter of policy. It could be,” attorney Jonathan Mitchell responded.
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back on that argument, asking why Congress thought people with arthritis “need to shoot 400 to seven or 800 rounds under any circumstances.”
“If you wouldn’t let someone without arthritis do it, why would you allow someone with arthritis to do it?” she asked.
A bump stock replaces a semi-automatic rifle’s regular stock, the part of the gun that hits the shoulder. This device allows the shooter to use recoil to mimic automatic firing if the index finger is held in place.
To work, the shooter must also apply forward pressure to the rifle. Many of the questions Wednesday focused on how the device works as the judge attempts to assess whether it falls under the law banning machine guns.
The law, which has its origins in the 1930s, defines a “machine gun” as a weapon that fires multiple rounds with “a single function of the trigger.”
Kagan asked the lawyers challenging the ban what would fall under this category. She wanted to know what happens to guns that require the shooter to press two triggers at once to fire — does that represent a “single function of the trigger?” If that’s the case, she said, why doesn’t applying forward pressure on the weapon, like a bump stock, also qualify?
At the end of the day, she said, it’s important to interpret the meaning of the text of the law. She also used common sense, she added.
“I consider myself a great textualist,” Kagan said, using a term favored by conservative justices like Alito and Gorsuch. “But, as you know, textualism is not inconsistent with common sense, just as at some point you need to apply a little common sense to how you read statutes.”
“What this law understands is a weapon that fires many shots in one human action,” she said, noting that whether it’s a traditional machine gun, the shooter either squeezes the trigger or the recoil of the gun. You need to apply pressure forward to dislike it.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would anyone think he should treat the two things separately?”
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