"The term “machinegun” means any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. 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 machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.
The bold section is important to the lawsuit. The underlined bit relates to bumpstocks.
Taking the underlined part. Bumpstocks are clearly not machine guns because their use still requires one shot per trigger pull. This is cut and dry, black and white. One shot per trigger pull, and there is no independent mechanism involved pulling the trigger for the shooter. Anyone with a 5th grade education who can read can understand this. Nevertheless, the plain language of the law is irrelevant; Trump ordered the BATFE to figure out a way to classify them as machine guns under this statute, they obeyed and tortured the english language sufficiently to do just that. The appellate courts, being staffed with functional illiterates upheld the administration's regulation and SCOTUS refused to hear the case. So it's done, and this is the new reality.
That reality is described by the bolded portion of the federal statute. Since a bumpstock, against all conventions of plain english, is now a machine gun, possession of a device that functions like a bumpstock and possession at the same time of a semi automatic rifle could arguably be legally defined as possession of an unregistered machine gun.
What devices function like a bump stock? Rubber bands, actually. A rubber band can be wrapped loosely around the trigger, then by applying forward force to the handguard (precisely as you would a bumpstock) the rifle will fire, the recoil will loosen the rubber band and allow the mechanism to reset, then fire again as the shooter applies forward motion to the entire firearm. In fact, I can argue that bump stocks are more legally justifiable than rubber bands; with a rubber band, the rubber band actually pulls the trigger. With a bump stock, the shooter's finger still have to pull the trigger, but no matter.
It gets better. A bump stock helps you bump fire. Bump fire is a technique; finger inside trigger guard off trigger, push rifle forward with support hand until trigger runs into trigger finger and is activated. Rifle fires, recoil backs trigger off of trigger finger, resets mechanism. Continued forward pressure moves the trigger back into contact with the trigger finger, triggering another shot. A bump stock is an aid that makes this easier, but it is not by any means necessary.
If this lawsuit succeeds then de facto all semi automatic firearms are legally machine guns, because bump fire does not require a bump stock. Possession of a semi auto firearm will constitute possession of a machine gun because there is a technique that will let you shoot fast. The fact that the law clearly does not support this does not matter. If the law mattered, the bump stock ban would've never been written to begin with, and the courts would've tossed it out instantly with nothing more than a "LOL, no."
I don't expect this lawsuit to succeed. For one, there's not actually any proof that bump stocks were used by the Vegas murderer, and BATFE has never been permitted to examine the weapons he used.
Because bump stocks were legal at the time, it also constitutes an ex post facto legal action. Then again, federal law clearly states bump stocks are not machine guns, yet here we are. Long term that's irrelevant; if it's determined possession of, say, rubber bands and a semi automatic rifle constitutes possession of an MG, then all semi autos will be de facto MGs and subject to the 1986 FOPA which says that any machine gun not registered before May 1986 in the NFA database is unlawful to possess. So almost all AR-15s, and all semi autos manufactured in the last 30 years.
As stated, they probably won't succeed with this lawsuit, but the framework is now in place. They only have to win once.
The people who thought the bump stock ban didn't matter and was fine were warned, repeatedly, that this would happen. They were told of the dangers and rather than examine the issue, they ranted about useless toys and took the position that Trump could do no wrong. I sincerely hope that next time they will listen to sound counsel when it is offered by people who are familiar with the issue and who are not prone to getting weak bowels over some young guys who like to burn ammo fast at the range for fun and giggles on YouTube.
NRA owns a lot of responsibility for this disaster too. They asked BATFE to regulate them, so BATFE did. Trump probably took their advice on this matter and is how he arrived at his position.
This is the fundamental axiom of law.
A new lawsuit against the manufacturers of guns used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting claims that AR-15-style rifles are illegal because they are compatible with bump stocks, which increase their rate of fire
That is idiotic, since it takes a finger pull for each round, you have to hold the weapon in a specific position and a bump stock can be fitted to almost any semiautomatic rifle....
There are never more weasels or weasel words used by them, than when it comes to proposing new ‘reasoned’ gun control.
Criminals don’t abide by our gun control laws now, so it is never reasoned to propose even one more gun law.
Only a weasel would propose a new gun law, and he would have to use weasel words while failing to justify it, based on the failure of gun laws to be observed by anyone other than law abiding citizens.
Crooks will always have a green light to do as they please, because it never pleases them to abide by our laws.
The bumpstock ban is the thing that I hate most that Trump has done but as far as I know SCOTUS hasn’t refused the case, it only refused to issue a preliminary injunction.
Binary triggers are legal - one shot per trigger pull and another shot when trigger is released.