NEW ORLEANS – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an important appellate brief, joined by FPC Action Foundation, in the case of Cargill v. Garland, which challenges the ATF’s unconstitutional ban on “bump stock” devices. The brief can be viewed atFPCLegal.org.
In December 2021, a 3-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban, saying that “the Bump Stock Rule’s interpretation of the NFA’s definition of ‘machinegun’ is the best interpretation of the statute.” Last June, however, the Court ordered that the panel opinion be vacated and that the full Court would review the appeal (known as a rehearing en banc).
“Because virtually all semiautomatic weapons can be bump fired, and because that technique can be aided by myriad common household products or clothing items, ATF’s definition is necessarily overbroad and would eliminate statutory distinctions between less-regulated semiautomatic rifles and handguns, and more-regulated machineguns,” argued FPC and FPCAF in their brief to the en banc Fifth Circuit. “Bump firing, whether aided by a bump stock, a rubber band, or merely a well-controlled finger, is not shooting automatically and the ease with which any given weapon can be bump fired does not turn semiautomatic firearms into heavily regulated machineguns.”
“Federal agencies, including the ATF, have no authority to create new law or change the meaning of statutes,” said FPC Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation, Cody J. Wisniewski. “Nor can the ATF, which calls itself an expert on firearms, intentionally misinterpret straight-forward terms like ‘trigger’ in order to achieve its preferred policy outcomes and ban things the agency and its bosses don’t like. A ‘bump stock’ is not a ‘machinegun’ even if the president says it is.”
“The district court’s ruling was based on a misunderstanding of the way that firearms and ‘bump stocks’ function,” said FPC Action Foundation Director of Constitutional Studies, Joseph Greenlee. “In our brief, we clarify the misconceptions that led to the erroneous lower court decision and explain why the correct understanding compels a ruling in favor of Mr. Cargill.”
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