USSC lifts bump stock ban

In general I agree, though I tend to believe the court should step in when the executive oversteps the bounds delegated to them through legislation. But yeah, it isn't the court's job to protect people from stupid laws where they don't infringe on fundamental rights.

 

So this is interesting, @tampagtr and @murphree_hall. Same statute, younger Clarence Thomas.
Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994)
As used here, the terms "automatic" and "fully automatic" refer to a weapon that fires repeatedly with a single pull of the trigger. That is, once its trigger is depressed, the weapon will automatically continue to fire until its trigger is released or the ammunition is exhausted. Such weapons are "machine guns" within the meaning of the Act. We use the term "semiautomatic" to designate a weapon that fires only one shot with each pull of the trigger, and which requires no manual manipulation by the operator to place another round in the chamber after each round is fired.
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At trial, BATF agents testified that when the AR-15 was tested, it fired more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger. It was undisputed that the weapon was not registered as required by § 5861(d). Petitioner testified that the rifle had never fired automatically when it was in his possession. He insisted that the AR-15 had operated only semiautomatically, and even then imperfectly, often requiring manual ejection of the spent casing and chambering of the next round. According to petitioner, his alleged ignorance of any automatic firing capability should have shielded him from criminal liability for his failure to register the weapon.

20 years later, this is Clarence's new understanding of that statute:
Although ATF agrees on a semiautomatic rifle’s mechanics, it nevertheless insists that a bump stock allows a semiautomatic rifle to fire multiple shots “by a single function of the trigger.” ATF starts by interpreting the phrase “single function of the trigger” to mean “a single pull of the trigger and analogous motions.” 83 Fed. Reg. 66553. A shooter using a bump stock, it asserts, must pull the trigger only one time to initiate a bump-firing sequence of multiple shots. Id., at 66554. This initial trigger pull sets off a sequence—fire, recoil, bump, fire—that allows the weapon to continue firing “without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.” Ibid. According to ATF, all the shooter must do is keep his trigger finger stationary on the bump stock’s ledge and maintain constant forward pressure on the front grip to continue firing. ...

This argument rests on the mistaken premise that there is a difference between a shooter flexing his finger to pull the trigger and a shooter pushing the firearm forward to bump the trigger against his stationary finger. ATF and the dissent seek to call the shooter’s initial trigger pull a “function of the trigger” while ignoring the subsequent “bumps” of the shooter’s finger against the trigger before every additional shot. But, §5845(b) does not define a machinegun based on what type of human input engages the trigger—whether it be a pull, bump, or something else.

 

He has moved with the country. Mass avoidable death is the price to pay to be able to shoot those you fear, rationally or irrationally

 

FWIW, and I know we disagree, I don’t think the positions are inconsistent and don’t even think “a single pull of the trigger” is particularly inaccurate for shorthand - it’s one that even most gun people use (although it’s not technically completely accurate under either view of the statute since there are triggers that fire on release, etc., as well as guns that use unconventional trigger mechanisms like cranks and buttons that aren’t pulled and released at all that everyone still agrees aren’t machineguns).

The difference of opinion between Thomas and ATF’s technical position here is whether what matters is whether the trigger has to be separately actuated (Thomas’s position) or what motion a shooter’s hand (without regard to any other body part) is making to actuate the trigger (ATF’s view). What complicates understanding it somewhat further is that the way ATF wrote the rule and argued it isn’t really accurate as to how AR triggers function, but they’re inaccurate in a way that is difficult to understand unless you’ve ever taken an AR trigger group apart and thought about how it works and what the various parts are doing.