Federal Court Puts End to Bump Stock Ban – ATF Overreach Called Out

Federal Court Puts End to Bump Stock Ban - ATF Overreach Called Out

(AmericanProsperity.com) – In 2017, a man shot and killed 58 people in Las Vegas, Nevada. The perpetrator fired over 1,000 rounds into a crowd of around 22,000 people in less than 11 minutes. The massacre prompted then-President Donald Trump to implement a ban on bump stocks. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down the ban.

On January 6, an en banc panel of the court ruled that the particular law used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) didn’t cover bump stocks, calling the ban an overreach of power by the agency. However, there will be no immediate impact on the order, as the case will now move back to a lower court to consider how to proceed in light of the 5th Circuit’s ruling.

Michael Cargill, the man who sued the government over the bump stock ban after he was forced to surrender his devices, claimed in court documents that the ATF improperly categorized bump stocks as “machine guns,” and the 5th Circuit agreed by a margin of 13 to 3. For a firearm to be considered a machine gun, the shooter only needs to operate the trigger once, but a bump stock repeatedly works the trigger.

Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority opinion that bump stocks don’t meet the definition of a machine gun under the National Firearms Act or the Gun Control Act, the ATF’s justification for the ban.

The ban survived earlier legal challenges in the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit Court, the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Washington DC Circuit. Likewise, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court also upheld the bump stock ban. However, the full panel later rejected that finding and heard oral arguments in the case in mid-September 2022.

It remains unclear whether officials from the Biden administration will appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.

~Here’s to Your Prosperity!

Copyright 2023, AmericanProsperity.com