Bump Stock Ban Hangs on ATF Rule, Machine Gun Law

A federal government ban on bump stocks under a statute regulating machine guns has been deemed valid and proper by three gun-control advocacy groups in a brief to the full Sixth Circuit because the accessories convert a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic one, reports Bloomberg News. In addition, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is entitled to routine court deference to its reading of the statute. The case is before the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which vacated a three-judge panel’s ruling that the government can’t regulate bump stocks using the federal machine-gun law.

Meanwhile, a bump stock proponent who lost an appeal in the Tenth Circuit has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of his case and is challenging the ATF regulation at issue here. In the Sixth Circuit case, the three groups opposed to gun violence are writing separately from the government to “provide additional technical explanation” about the workings of bump stocks, they say. “When Congress banned machine guns, it crafted a broad definition whose ordinary meaning captures efforts to circumvent the ban, including mechanisms that convert semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons,” they say. They also say they want to rebut an “invitation for courts to replace ATF as the country’s principal regulator of guns simply because many laws designed to combat gun violence may have criminal implications.”