Minnesota AG joins coalition urging Supreme Court to uphold ban on bump stocks
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A coalition of 23 state attorney generals is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a ban on bump stocks, a modification that increases the rate of fire of semi-automatic rifles.
On Wednesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced his state's involvement in the coalition and called bump stocks a "threat to the safety" to all U.S. citizens. He says the ban is common sense.
"I'm asking the Supreme Court to uphold the rule because the last thing Minnesotans want is to make it easier for dangerous people to get their hands on even more lethal firearms," Ellison said.
Ellison says the coalition is also highlighting the fact that 18 jurisdictions have already banned or regulated bump stocks, "emphasizing that the 2018 rule is critical to fill gaps in state-by-state regulation of these extremely dangerous devices."
In November, the Supreme Court said it will consider a challenge to the Trump-era regulation.
HOW DID THE BUMP STOCK RULE BEGIN?
The ban arose after a gunman used semi-automatic weapons outfitted with bump stock devices in a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and injured more than 500. The devices allowed the shooter to fire "several hundred rounds of ammunition" into a crowd at a concert. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
At the center of the legal battle over bump stocks is a rule from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, issued in 2018 that expanded the definition of "machine gun" prohibited under the National Firearms Act to include bump stocks. Any person found with the device would be subject to a felony.
CHALLENGE TO BAN
Michael Cargill, the man who brought the case now before the court, bought two bump stocks in April 2018, before the ATF issued its final rule outlawing them, but turned in the devices in March 2019 after the ban went into effect. That same day, he filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Texas challenging the ban on numerous grounds.
MORE HERE: Supreme Court agrees to hear case over ban on bump stocks for firearms
A three-judge appeals court panel agreed with the district court's conclusion that bump stocks qualify as machine guns under federal law. But the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed the panel's decision under a legal principle that requires the court to side with the challenger when a law is ambiguous. After determining that the National Firearms Act is ambiguous in two areas, the 5th Circuit concluded that a non-mechanical bump stock is not a machine gun under the laws.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to take up the dispute over the bump stock ban in April, arguing that ATF's rule didn't change the scope of the prohibition on machine guns and instead was a means of informing the public of the agency's view that bump stocks are machine guns.
