The Supreme Court is considering a Trump administration-era ban on gun bump stocks. Here’s what you need to know:

Washington – of Route 91 Harvest Music Festival For Gina Marano Springman, the Las Vegas event was becoming an annual tradition. She attended the three-day country music event with her best friend in 2016, and returned the following year with Springman’s oldest sister.

But that year, singer Jason Aldean was performing around 10 p.m. when he heard a sound that at first sounded like fireworks, but soon realized it was gunshots, and was at a hotel across the street. Springman recalled the rain pouring down from the casino’s 32nd-floor windows. After being protected for several minutes by her sister, Marisa Marano, the women ran to a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Ms. Springman texted her mother that there had been a shooting at her concert, that she was on the run, and that she loved her mother.

Fifty-eight people were killed in the rampage, two others later died, and about 500 others were injured.of October 2017 Massacre The mass shooting is the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history and sparked a federal lawsuit that is currently being considered by the Supreme Court.

The FBI said the gunman was using a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a so-called bump stock, which can fire up to 1,000 rounds in 11 minutes.President Donald Trump’s administration I took a step In the wake of the shooting, it quickly banned the device and issued regulations clarifying that bump stocks are “machine guns” as defined by federal law.

of The legality of that ban Although the case is currently pending in the Supreme Court, Hearing arguments on Wednesday With the challenges posed in Texas in 2019.

“I know the impact this device has on me personally because I know it can fire 800 rounds per minute and essentially turn an assault weapon into a machine gun,” the 29-year-old said. Springman told CBS News. “I know that device is on the market, I know that assault weapons exist, and I saw with my own eyes the damage it can do that night. , what we went through was horrifying and I don’t want anyone to go through that.”

What is a bump stock?

A bump stock is an attachment that replaces the standard stock on a semi-automatic rifle, the part at the rear of the gun that rests on the shooter’s shoulder. This allows the rest of the gun to move back and forth while keeping the stock in place, and includes a finger rest to keep the trigger from moving. When the gun is fired and the shooter applies forward pressure to the barrel, the rifle recoils against the stock and bounces forward again, causing the trigger to “bump” against the finger and fire the next round. This device allows the shooter to fire much faster than is possible with a standard stock.

Although the case draws input from numerous groups on both sides of the gun rights debate, the case scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court, known as Garland v. Cargill, is not about the Second Amendment. Rather, at its heart lies a question of legal interpretation: whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had the authority to outlaw bump stocks.

“It’s really a question of who decides, and Congress needs to decide, not the ATF,” said Mark Chenoweth, president and chief legal officer of the New Civil Liberties Union, which is behind the challenge to Trump. ” he said. Era prohibited. The power to create criminal laws “lies solely with Congress,” Chenoweth said.

The justices will consider whether bump stocks qualify as “machine guns” as defined in the National Firearms Act. According to the law, a machine gun is “a weapon that fires multiple shots automatically by a single trigger function without manual reloading.” It also includes parts used to “convert the weapon into a machine gun.”

Federal appeals courts have reached different conclusions about whether the Trump administration-era ban on bump stocks is legal. ATF itself had It was decided many times From 2008 to 2017, bump stocks were found not to be recognized as machine guns and not regulated by federal law.

But after the Las Vegas shooting, the department reversed its stance. President Trump has directed the Justice Department to propose new rules that would ban any device that “turns a legal weapon into a machine gun.”

The ATF determined that rifles with bump stocks qualify as machine guns, in part because when the shooter pulls the trigger, a multiple-shot firing sequence begins. The sequence is “automatic” because “the device harnesses the recoil energy of the firearm as part of a continuous reciprocating cycle, allowing the shooter to fire consecutive shots with just one pull of the trigger,” officials said. has been certified.

of Final rule from the Trump administration Those who already owned bump stocks had to destroy their devices or convert them to ATF before the ban went into effect in March 2019. Violators who continue to possess bump stocks may face criminal penalties.

Challenge to ban bump stocks

While rulemaking was underway, Michael Cargill, the man at the center of the lawsuit, purchased two bump stocks in April 2018. After the final rule was adopted, he turned them into ATF and challenged the ban in federal district court a day later. In Texas.

The district court ruled in favor of the ATF, finding that the agency properly classified rifles with bump stocks as machine guns. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision, concluding that “under the best interpretation of the statute, bump stocks qualify as machine guns.” Ta.

However, all judges on the Fifth Circuit struck down the regulation, ruling 13-3 in January 2023 that Congress must take action to ban bump stocks. In part of the lead opinion written by Justice Jennifer Elrod, eight justices found that bump stocks clearly do not fall within the statutory definition of a machine gun. But 12 justices sided with Cargill, saying the machine gun definition invoked a legal principle known as the doctrine of leniency, which requires courts to interpret unclear criminal laws in the way most favorable to defendants. The conclusion was that it was ambiguous.

Other federal appeals courts are also considering the legality of bump stock regulations. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit also applied a lenient rule, siding with bump stock owner Scott Hardin, stating that “because the relevant legal system does not clearly and unequivocally prohibit bump stocks, we will be forced to interpret Hardin’s statute.” please. ”

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the rule, ruling that bump stocks are illegal under federal firearms law “under the best interpretation of the statute.” It was determined that it was a machine gun. is a “self-adjusting mechanism that allows the shooter to fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger.”

In April 2023, the Biden administration appealed the Fifth Circuit’s ruling to the Supreme Court, arguing that semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks meet the federal definition of machine guns. The Justice Department also asked the Supreme Court to review the Sixth Circuit’s decision, but the gun owners who brought the D.C. lawsuit appealed the adverse ruling to the high court last summer.

Supreme Court precedent

Cargill’s lawyers argued that bump stocks fall outside the definition of a machine gun for two reasons. First, the trigger is reset and must be restarted after each shot from a weapon with a bump stock, so the device will not cause the gun to fire multiple shots “by a single function of the trigger.” Second, a bump stock does not allow the rifle to fire automatically. This is because the shooter must continuously perform manual operations after pulling the trigger.

If the Supreme Court found the statute’s language ambiguous, Mr. Cargill’s lawyers urged the justices to side with him, citing the principle of leniency.

“The whole point of the rule of law is that people are supposed to be able to define the law in such a way that they can pre-empt cuts to the law, especially criminal law,” Chenoweth said. “We want to define the law in a way that people can avoid breaking it, but if we allow government agencies to change the meaning of the law after people have already acted, we have no chance of avoiding cuts to the law. there is no. “

But gun violence prevention advocates are asking the judge to uphold the ban on bump stocks, arguing in a friend-of-the-court brief that the devices are intended to turn semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. There is. According to the Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, if a rifle is equipped with this device, the shooter only needs to pull the trigger once, and as long as the shooter keeps his or her index finger still and maintains forward pressure, the gun will fire. Shots were fired continuously. Barrel.

They also said in court that over the past 100 years, Congress has repeatedly expanded the definition of “machine gun” to thwart manufacturers’ efforts to circumvent the federal ban. The ATF rule is consistent with the plain text interpretation of the law and furthers Congress’ decision to ban devices that convert semiautomatic weapons into machine guns, the groups wrote.

“The bump stock rule is just common sense,” Billy Clark, senior litigation attorney at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said on a call with reporters about the case. “A bump stock turns a semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic machine gun. That is its sole purpose. Congress has entrusted the ATF with the ability to protect the public from technological advancements like bump stocks, and the ATF・When issuing a stock order, he acted fairly and squarely within the scope of his authority.” stock rule. ”

The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Fifth Circuit’s decision and allow bump stock restrictions to remain, arguing that the ATF’s interpretation of the machine gun definition is the correct and best one.

“A rifle with a bump stock, like a conventional machine gun, is a dangerous and unusual weapon,” Attorney General Elizabeth Preloger, representing the government in the High Court, said in a submission.

Springman said she still vividly remembers the night punctuated by gunshots more than six years ago and lives with the “invisible scars” of the shooting. She remembers crouching in the fetal position after a cannon went off at a football game, and she tells herself that the fireworks are just fireworks.

“It’s scary to imagine that if a device were to fall into the wrong hands, it could do so much damage and still allow people to access it,” Springman said.

The court’s decision is expected to be handed down by the end of June.