Biden admin appeals bump stock case to Supreme Court with only minutes to spare

[Elderberry]

American Military News by Chris Kirkman April 14, 2023

The Biden Justice Department filed a petition to the Supreme Court to appeal a ruling in a bump stock case with just minutes to spare last week.

The DOJ is requesting a stay against the court’s ruling to allow the use of bump stocks in the important Second Amendment rights case. Bump stocks are attachments that allow a shooter to fire a semiautomatic rifle continuously, similar to a fully automatic weapon.

“Like other machineguns, rifles modified with bump stocks are exceedingly dangerous; Congress prohibited the possession of such weapons for good reason.” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the new filing, according to CNN. “The decision below contradicts the best interpretation of the statute, creates an acknowledged circuit conflict, and threatens significant harm to public safety.”

The prior court ruling concluded that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was not authorized to define bump stocks as machine guns. The move by the agency sought to ban the item. Three previous appeals courts agreed with the bump stock regulation, while a January appellate court did not.

More: https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/04/biden-admin-appeals-bump-stock-case-to-supreme-court-with-only-minutes-to-spare/

[Smokin Joe]

“Like other machineguns, rifles modified with bump stocks are exceedingly dangerous; Congress prohibited the possession of such weapons for good reason.” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the new filing, according to CNN.

Should be denied cert. just on the basis of a material misstatement.

Bump stocks do NOT a machine gun make.

They enable the firing of a semi automatic firearm at closer to its theoretical rate of fire, but do not materially alter the fact that it still takes one pull of the trigger for each round fired. It just makes it easier to pull the trigger in synch with the cycling of the firearm.

With a machine gun, either the gun fires a predetermined number of rounds (as in 3-round burst on a select fire weapon) per pull of the trigger or continues to fire as the trigger is held down until ammunition is exhausted or the trigger is released. One pull of the trigger is capable of firing multiple rounds.

A semi-automatic rifle with a bump stock does not function that way, and is, by definition, NOT a machine gun.