Federal Court Hands Biden White House a Massive Loss on Gun Rule

Matt Vespa / Townhall Tipsheet 

 

It’s been a rough week for the Biden administration on gun policy. They got double-tapped on the areas where they could ostensibly score regulatory wins. As Spencer wrote earlier today, the Supreme Court slapped down the ban on bump stocks in a 6-3 vote:

 

"The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Garland v. Cargill that the ATF exceeded its statutory authority by classifying bump stocks as "machineguns" in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. 

Written by Justice Thomas, the majority opinion released Friday morning explains that "Congress could have linked the definition of 'machinegun' to a weapon's rate of fire" in the National Firearms Act of 1934 but "it instead enacted a statute that turns on whether a weapon can fire more than one shot 'automatically...by a single function of the trigger.'" 

"We hold that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a 'machinegun' because it cannot fire more than one shot 'by a single function of the trigger,'" Thomas writes. "And, even if it could, it would not do so 'automatically.'" As such, the Supreme Court arrived at its ruling that the "ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns." Read ore and see Xs here.