Garland v. Cargill

Background

The dispute arose after a mass shooting in Las Vegas where a shooter used semiautomatic rifles with bump stocks. ATF reversed a long-standing position and issued a 2018 rule treating bump stocks as machineguns and ordering owners to destroy or surrender them within 90 days. A gun owner who had surrendered two bump stocks under protest sued, and courts split before the case reached this Court.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether a bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger” and whether it does so “automatically.” The majority held it does not. It explained that each shot still requires the trigger to release and reset, so each shot follows a separate trigger function, and that continuous forward pressure by the shooter (not purely automatic action) is required to repeat firing. The Court concluded ATF exceeded the law in reclassifying bump stocks and rejected relying on a presumption that would read the statute more broadly.

Real world impact

The decision invalidates ATF’s 2018 regulatory classification of bump stocks as machineguns and undercuts the Rule’s surrender-or-destroy requirement. Owners are no longer subject to that rule’s criminal threat under this Court’s ruling. The opinion notes Congress remains able to change the law if it chooses.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissent argued bump stocks function like machineguns and warned the ruling enables easy evasion of Congress’s aim; a separate concurrence agreed with the result but urged Congress could amend the statute.