If the Supreme Court rules that bump stocks aren’t machine guns later this summer, it could quickly open an unfettered marketplace of newer, more powerful rapid-fire devices.
The Trump administration, in a rare break from gun rights groups, quickly banned bump stocks after the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert that was the deadliest in U.S. history. In the ensuing years, gun rights groups challenged the underlying rationale that bump stocks are effectively machine guns — culminating in a legal fight now before the Supreme Court.
A machine gun is defined by the NFA of 1934 using very specific terms. Bump stocks do not meet these terms. There is only one way this will shake out.
Not for nothing but this supreme court has changed the definition of words before so.
Eh… Washington State banned ALL semi-automatic center-fire rifles this year. Yeah, you read that correctly, all of them. So you can’t even get a rifle, let alone a bump stock.
The Trump administration, in a rare break from gun rights groups, quickly banned bump stocks
Where do people keep getting this notion that trump is in favor of gun rights? He’s on record saying that he prefers to take guns away extra-judicially, and his only legislation for firearms was to ban some. He’s a tyrant, and like all tyrants, he does not want an armed populace.
Hellfire triggers make bump stocks irrelevant anyway.
I don’t even understand the appeal to a bump stock. From my understanding of the way they work, it seems that they wouldn’t be any faster than rapidly pulling the trigger on a semi-automatic, and it seems that you would lose all of your aiming precision going through the bumping motion.
Well, you lose aiming precision in full auto regardless. :)
But, yeah, it’s using the recoil energy to continue pulling the trigger.
Wouldn’t that fall under the current definition of a machine gun? (There’s a link farther down in this thread). Bump stock doesn’t technically meet that definition but this looks like it does.
Edit: punctuation
It’s complicated. The ATF hasn’t technically ruled on Hellfire triggers.
Here’s a description of the mechanism, apparently they ruled it wasn’t (edit: a machine gun) back in 1990. It looked like a single trigger pull in the video, but apparently the mechanism pushes the trigger back to reset it quicker. I’m guessing the video was showing the guy tuning it so that the momentum of the gun itself would cause the trigger to be pulled automatically if the finger was held in the right position (he said to lightly squeeze it).
If bump stock is banned, hellfire trigger systems should also be. If hellfire trigger systems aren’t banned, then bump stocks shouldn’t be. At least if they are tuned like that.
Though I can’t think of a good reason to increase fire rate other than for use in combat/attacks when targeting multiple people who don’t have much cover.
What part of “Shall not be infringed” do lawmakers not understand?
Hopefully we go after the Firearm Owners Protection act next and make full auto legal again (here is a hint in never should have been illegal in the first place).
Bump stocks are cringe. Declare machine guns are not machine guns.
