Bump stocks allow for the trigger to be activated multiple times by a mechanjcal device with a single (human) pull of the trigger. The person is not pulling the trigger multiple times, even though the trigger is being moved multiple times.
I know the whole thing is pedantic legalese, but it is like saying mechanically activating a trigger rapidly with a motor activated with a single button press would be legal.
In that scenario the button is the trigger. Trigger is being used not to describe a curved piece of metal you put your finger on but the input device. The oral arguments had a lot around that issue.
On weapons with these standard trigger mechanisms, the phrase “function of the trigger” means the physical trigger movement required to shoot the firearm. Pg. 7
Although it sounds like there maybe be edge cases where specially designed firearms are treated differently if they lack a traditional mechanism.
I dunno about a servo/motor interface being legal, ATF went to and fro over the Akins Accelerator in the mid 2000s before they decided that it is a machine gun because it added springs to provide the reset - thus in their view it became integral to the gun like a drop in auto sear, and falls under the ‘single function’ test.
The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun
The 6-3 majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas found the Justice Department was wrong to declare that bump stocks transformed semiautomatic rifles into illegal machine guns because, he said, they don’t “alter the basic mechanics of firing.”
The conservative majority that spent pages using circular logic to determine what a trigger is were wrong, and this quote is a prime example.
Edit: Hot damn, the dissent is an excellent tear down of how terrible the logic used in the majority opinion is.
This Court itself has also previously read the definition of “machinegun” in this exact statute to refer to the action of the shooter rather than the firing mechanism. In Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 (1994), the Court noted that “a weapon that fires repeatedly with a single pull of the trig- ger” is a machinegun, as opposed to “a weapon that fires only one shot with each pull of the trigger,” which is (at most) a semiautomatic firearm. Id., at 602, n. 1 (emphasis added). A “pull” of the trigger necessarily requires human input.
I ain’t bringing logic into it, I’m just pointing out how the law has been interpreted.
Attaching things to guns that enable fully automatic fire as it is defined by the law, i.e. more than one shot per activation of the trigger, do count, though. This includes things such as full auto sear or those fucking “Glock switches” that are so popular these days.
With a crank trigger you have to keep cranking it to keep firing, like an old wild west Gatling gun. You can’t just hold it down and the gun dumps the magazine on its own. A bump stock aids the user in rapidly pressing the trigger over and over again. You can bump fire a rifle even without a bump stock if you are sufficiently practiced or skilled.
Right, that’s the kind of thought I was having with my “maybe” clause. The operator of the rifle is arguably a mechanical part of the automatic trigger pull when a bump stock is employed, because the operator is not willfully choosing to pull the trigger each individual time. The trigger is being actioned by a mechnical process outside of the conscious will of the operator.
Bump stocks allow for the trigger to be activated multiple times by a mechanjcal device with a single (human) pull of the trigger. The person is not pulling the trigger multiple times, even though the trigger is being moved multiple times.
I know the whole thing is pedantic legalese, but it is like saying mechanically activating a trigger rapidly with a motor activated with a single button press would be legal.
.
In that scenario the button is the trigger. Trigger is being used not to describe a curved piece of metal you put your finger on but the input device. The oral arguments had a lot around that issue.See the reply below
.
You’re correct went back and reread it:
Although it sounds like there maybe be edge cases where specially designed firearms are treated differently if they lack a traditional mechanism.
.
Extending the traditional trigger’s function by adding more and more complex Rube Goldbergian designs just moves where and how the trigger starts.
I dunno about a servo/motor interface being legal, ATF went to and fro over the Akins Accelerator in the mid 2000s before they decided that it is a machine gun because it added springs to provide the reset - thus in their view it became integral to the gun like a drop in auto sear, and falls under the ‘single function’ test.
The conservative majority that spent pages using circular logic to determine what a trigger is were wrong, and this quote is a prime example.
Edit: Hot damn, the dissent is an excellent tear down of how terrible the logic used in the majority opinion is.
I believe it is. So are crank triggers, which clamp on to your trigger guard and click the trigger for you 2/3/4 times per revolution.
Which by any logical definition makes the crank (or the bumpstock) the trigger, since it is what is used to trigger the mechanics of the weapon.
I guess there i some precedent where a thing attached to a gun doesn’t count as part of the gun?
I ain’t bringing logic into it, I’m just pointing out how the law has been interpreted.
Attaching things to guns that enable fully automatic fire as it is defined by the law, i.e. more than one shot per activation of the trigger, do count, though. This includes things such as full auto sear or those fucking “Glock switches” that are so popular these days.
With a crank trigger you have to keep cranking it to keep firing, like an old wild west Gatling gun. You can’t just hold it down and the gun dumps the magazine on its own. A bump stock aids the user in rapidly pressing the trigger over and over again. You can bump fire a rifle even without a bump stock if you are sufficiently practiced or skilled.
Right, that’s the kind of thought I was having with my “maybe” clause. The operator of the rifle is arguably a mechanical part of the automatic trigger pull when a bump stock is employed, because the operator is not willfully choosing to pull the trigger each individual time. The trigger is being actioned by a mechnical process outside of the conscious will of the operator.