SCOTUS turns away bump stock, gun seizure cases
For the third time this year the Supreme Court has rejected a case dealing with the ATF’s administratively imposed ban on bump stocks, denying cert in a challenge to the ban brought by a group of federally licensed firearm retailers and several individuals who argued that the ban was an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause by forcing existing bump stock owners to destroy them without any kind of compensation on the part of the federal government.
Today’s decision follows the denial of two other challenges to the bump stock ban, which was imposed by the Trump administration following the Route 91 Harvest music festival shooting in Las Vegas in 2017. Previously, the ATF had determined that bump stocks should not be considered “machine guns” under federal law, given that even with bump stocks attached it took a pull of the trigger to release a single round.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a U.S. Justice Department agency, reversed a previous conclusion and classified bump stocks as machine guns under a 1934 U.S. law called the National Firearms Act. The policy took effect in 2019.
Two sets of plaintiffs filed lawsuits seeking compensation for having to destroy or surrender their bump stocks in the Court of Federal Claims, which hears monetary claims against the U.S. government. A judge dismissed the actions, finding the policy to be a lawful exercise of the federal government’s power to outlaw dangers to public health and safety.
“The Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld those decisions last year for a different reason, ruling that a property right in the devices was inherently limited given the existing federal prohibition on machine guns.
We don’t know why SCOTUS rejected these challenges, just that there weren’t four justices willing to accept any of these cases. And while the odds of any particular case being granted cert by the Court are low (about 1-in-10,000), gun owners are rightfully going to be concerned about the Court’s inaction, especially with the Biden administration using the Trump tactic to pursue administrative bans against unfinished frames and receivers, pistol stabilizing braces, and potentially even semi-automatic handguns and rifles.
Today’s decision doesn’t mean that these same justices will stand by and let future abuses of executive authority slide, but as long as SCOTUS doesn’t object the Biden administration is likely to take their silence as a green light for more rule-making of dubious constitutionality.
The other case turned away by the Supreme Court today dealt with the seizure of a New York man’s firearms; a case that the attorneys for Wayne Torcivia argued was virtually identical to a similar search and seizure that the Court ruled unconstitutional in Caniglia v. Strom.