GIFFORDS Law Center, Brady, Everytown for Gun Safety File Amicus Brief to Reverse Fifth Circuit’s Dangerous Cargill Decision
Washington DC – Today, three of the nation’s leading gun violence prevention organizations – GIFFORDS Law Center, Brady, and Everytown for Gun Safety,– filed an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the United States Department of Justice’s (DOJ) petition for certiorari in United States v. Cargill.
The brief urges the Court to take up the case to reverse the Fifth Circuit’s dangerous and misguided decision invalidating a rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that prohibited the production, sale, and possession of bump stocks, devices that enable semiautomatic firearms to be converted into machine guns.
In 2019, following the nation’s deadliest mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival where a gunman, using firearms equipped with bump stocks, opened fire – firing more than 1,000 bullets and killing 60 people – ATF issued a rule categorizing bump stocks as machine guns under the federal Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act. The devices harness the recoil of a semiautomatic firearm to enable continuous fire with a single pull of the trigger. Civilian ownership of newly- manufactured machine guns has been illegal since 1986.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a failed challenge to the bump stock rule, allowing a decision upholding the rule to stay in place.
The amicus brief can be found here.
Esther Sanchez-Gomez, Litigation Director, GIFFORDS Law Center:
“We’ve seen the horrific damage bump stocks can do: that have been used to perpetrate the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. Firearms are lethal, and this tool—which easily converts semi automatic rifles into fully automatic ones—poses an especially grave danger if left unregulated. The extremist Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has once again put the whims of the gun lobby ahead of the safety of all Americans. The Supreme Court must grant certiorari to correct the decision, uphold ATF’s strict regulation of these dangerous accessories, and carry forward Congressional intent to protect against workarounds. This commonsense, and it will undoubtedly save lives.”
Kris Brown, President of Brady:
“Bump stocks turn semi-automatic weapons into the functional equivalent of automatic ones, and, like assault weapons, they have no place in civilian life. The ATF was right to ban these devices following the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest shooting and we urge the Supreme Court to take up this case and reverse this disastrous and deadly Fifth Circuit decision. Lives are counting on it.”
John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety:
“Guns outfitted with bump stocks fire like machine guns, they kill like machine guns, and they need to be regulated like machine guns—which are illegal in the United States. It’s no coincidence that bump stocks were used in the deadliest mass shooting in our nation’s history, when 60 people were murdered at a country music festival in Las Vegas. The Supreme Court must overturn the Fifth Circuit’s deadly decision and get these accessories of war — and that’s what bump stocks are — out of the marketplace.”
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