NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Trump administration’s ban on bump stocks — devices that allow shooters to rapidly fire multiple rounds from a semi-automatic weapon after pulling the initial trigger — was thrown out Friday by a federal appeals court in New Orleans.
The ban was implemented after a gunman perched in a high-rise hotel using a bump stock-equipped weapon massacred dozens of people in Las Vegas in 2017. gun rights supporters have challenged it in several courts. The 13-3 ruling in the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest on the issue, which will be decided by the Supreme Court.
The decision has no immediate impact on the ban as the case now goes back to a lower court to decide how to proceed.
This case is somewhat unique in that the issue does not involve the Second Amendment but the interpretation of a federal statute. Opponents of the ban say bump stocks fall outside the definition of illegal machine guns under federal law. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says they do, a position the Biden administration is now defending.
“A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with consideration of the mechanics of semi-automatic firearms, indicates that bump stocks are excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ set forth in the Gun Control Act and the National Firearms Act,” Judge Jennifer Walker said. Elrod wrote in the lead majority opinion.
The court found that the definition of a machine gun — set out in two different federal statutes — “does not apply to bump stocks.”
The ban survived a challenge in the Cincinnati-based 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals; The 10th Circuit is based in Denver; and the federal circuit court in Washington. A panel of three judges in the 5th Circuit also issued a decision in favor of the ban, upholding the decision of a lower court by a Texas federal judge. But the full New Orleans-based court voted to reconsider the case. Arguments were heard on September 13.
Bump stocks use the recoil energy of semi-automatic firearms to allow the trigger to “reset and continue to fire without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter,” according to the ATF. A shooter must maintain constant forward pressure on the weapon with the non-shooting hand, and constant pressure on the trigger with the trigger finger, according to court records.
The full appeals court sided with opponents of the ATF rule. They say the trigger can be used multiple times when a bump stock is used, so a bump stock weapon does not qualify as a machine gun under federal law. He pointed to language in the law that defines a machine gun as one that fires multiple times with a “single function trigger.”
Most majorities also agree that the law is ambiguous, leaving Congress to address the issue under a court doctrine called “lenity.”
In his opinion, Judge Stephen Higginson disagreed that bump stocks do not fall within the federal definition of a machine gun. And he writes that the majority’s interpretation of the principle of lenity is too broad. “Under the majority’s rule, the defendant wins by default when the government fails to prove that the statute clearly violates the defendant’s conduct,” Higginson wrote.
Richard Samp, who supported the law on behalf of Texas gun owners, said he was pleased with the decision on Friday and had expected it after the September arguments.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday afternoon.
The judges who opposed the ban were Elrod, Priscilla Richman, Edith Jones, Jerry Smith, Carl Stewart, Leslie Southwick, Catharina Haynes, Don Willett, James Ho, Kyle Duncan, Kurt Engelhardt, Cory Wilson and Andrew Oldham. All but Stewart are Republican representatives on the appeals court.
Higginson disagreed with judges James Dennis and James Graves. The case was argued before Judge Dana Douglas, a recent appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, joined the 5th Circuit.