Show of hands, who has been paying attention to the various lawsuits dealing with the ATF’s reinterpretation of Bump Stocks? Because to be completely honest, I haven’t been paying as much attention as I clearly should have been. In their most recent court filing, the ATF has admitted some truly explosive news. Namely, they concede that they do not have the authority to reinterpret the definition of machine guns in the bump stock ruling under the National Firearms Act (NFA).
Let’s back up and provide some context. So, on December 26th, 2018, the ATF issued a final ruling on “bump stocksâ€. A bump-stock is a device that allows an operator of a firearm to simulate automatic fire by muscle power. While previously the ATF had decided that bump-fire or slide-fire stocks were legal devices, they then reclassified them as illegal machineguns. All current owners were ordered to destroy them. If you did not do so, you faced up to 10 years in federal prison.
Naturally, a lot of people became somewhat ticked off that the ATF would seemingly arbitrarily change their ruling to make thousands of Americans potential felons overnight. As a result, many people filed lawsuits. One such lawsuit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of plaintiff W. Clark Aposhian.
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The statutory scheme does not, however, appear to provide the Attorney General the authority to engage in “gap-filling†interpretations of what qualifies as a “machinegunâ€. Congress has provided a detailed definition of the term “machinegunâ€â€¦
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/09/21/atf-bump-stock-ruling/