What Does the Garland v. Cargill Decision Mean?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

There was a win for the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the Second Amendment when the Supreme Court made a recent 6-3 decision. According to Amy Swearer at The Daily Signal, the [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] “exceeded its statutory authority when it reclassified bump stocks as ‘machine guns’ under federal law.” 

Garland v. Cargill “centered around firearms,” but it did not “involve any arguments over whether the Second Amendment protects a right to own bump stocks, specifically, or machine guns, generally,” according to Swearer.

In her article Swearer indicated “the question in this case was far more simplistic: Is a bump stock device a machine gun, in the first place?” Then she continued:

Understanding Cargill requires a bit of background and context. One of the most important distinctions made by federal gun regulations is between machine guns, the possession of which is heavily restricted for civilians, and semiautomatic firearms, which have long been the type of gun most commonly owned by civilians.

Federal law defines a machine gun as a weapon that “shoots, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” A semiautomatic rifle, meanwhile, “requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge.”

In layman’s terms, the distinction between a machine gun and a semiautomatic firearm is all about what must happen for the gun to fire a second bullet.

In a semiautomatic weapon, pulling the trigger causes the gun to fire exactly one round. In order to fire a second bullet, you must release the trigger so that it resets, and then it must be physically pulled again to fire the next bullet.

But when you pull the trigger in a machine gun, the weapon will fire bullets continuously until either you release the trigger, or the gun runs out of ammunition. The trigger doesn’t need to reset and be reengaged.

From a practical standpoint, then, one of the primary differences between machine guns and semiautomatic guns (and the primary reason machine guns are so heavily restricted for civilians) is that machine guns have a much faster rate of fire.

But, importantly, Congress didn’t include “rate of fire” as a factor for determining whether a weapon is [a] machine gun, choosing instead to focus on the internal mechanics of the gun.

Enter the bump stock, an aftermarket device that can be affixed to many commonly owned semiautomatic rifle platforms. These devices don’t change the gun’s internal mechanics – one pull of the trigger will still cause the gun to fire only one bullet.

Instead, the device enables the shooter, through a combination of technique and physics, to pull the trigger much more rapidly than most shooters would be capable of, absent the device….

Even though the device could greatly increase the gun’s rate of fire to rival that of a machine gun, the basic mechanics of the semiautomatic rifle hadn’t changed.

After sharing more information, Shearer explained that the Cargill decision “is a victory that reverberates far beyond the Second Amendment. It’s a win for the rule of law and constitutional government.

In other words, the ATF was infringing on the Second Amendment rights of all Americans as well as other freedom as well. All Americans should thank God for conservative justices.