The Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s bump stock ban is no reason to celebrate
Many want to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling against Donald Trump’s bump stock ban because it looks like a Second Amendment win, but a closer look at the ruling mixed with the possibility that Trump and the Republican Party could be in control of Washington after the November election should give every Constitution-loving conservative pause.
In a report provided by SCOTUSblog.com, we see how this “victory” for gun owners isn’t all it’s cracked up to be:
The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule that banned bump stocks, issued by the Trump administration after a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. By a vote of 6-3, the justices rejected the federal government’s argument that rifles equipped with bump stocks are machine guns, which are generally prohibited under federal law. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s conservative justices emphasized that Congress could have enacted a law that banned all weapons capable of high rates of fire, but it did not – and so the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was wrong to interpret the federal ban on machine guns to extend to bump stocks.
The Trump administration issued the rule at the center of the case in 2018. It followed a mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas in which the gunman used semi-automatic rifles equipped with a bump-stock device to kill 60 people and injure over 500 more. The rule, which concluded that bump stocks are machine guns, was an about-face from the ATF’s previous position, which until 2018 had indicated that only some kinds of bump stocks are machine guns. Under the 2018 rule, anyone who owned a bump stock was required to destroy it or drop it at a nearby ATF office to avoid criminal penalties.
Unlike some gun-rights cases that have come before the Supreme Court recently, [this] case did not involve the Second Amendment right to bear arms, but instead a federal law that defines a machine gun as any weapon that can fire “more than one shot,” “automatically” and “by a single function of the trigger.” (Emphasis mine)
The bump stock ban was the work of Donald Trump. The bump stock ban turned anyone who owned one into a criminal (even if they were legal when purchased). The Supreme Court ruling addressing bump stocks ignored the Second Amendment.
However, did you catch the part about how Congress should do what Donald Trump tried but failed to do? This was the guidance provided by “conservative” Justice Samuel Alito in his concurring opinion:
Justice Samuel Alito penned a short concurring opinion in which he emphasized that the majority’s ruling reflected the only way to interpret the ban on machine guns. But he acknowledged that “the Congress that enacted” the machine gun ban “would not have seen any material difference between a machinegun and a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock.” However, Alito stressed, “the statutory text is clear, and we must follow it.”
Alito added that there “is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns. Congress can amend the law — and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear,” Alito concluded, “Congress can act.” (Emphasis mine)
Let’s put Alito’s comments aside for a moment. Another reason we have no cause to celebrate the Supreme Court bump stock ruling is that Donald Trump and the Republican Party could very well be running the show after November.
Despite his claim at the 2023 National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention that he was the “most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president” in history, Donald Trump has been and always will be pro-gun control and anti-Second Amendment.
During his self-proclaimed “pro-Second Amendment” presidency, Donald Trump:
- Openly embraced Nancy Pelosi’s gun-control agenda
- Banned bump stocks via executive order
- Pushed for enhanced background checks
- Proposed expanding red flag laws on a national level
As a threat to the entire Constitution, Trump also went after the right to privacy and the right to due process to advance his pro-gun control, anti-Second Amendment agenda:
- He suggested that law enforcement ignore due process rights to make it easier to seize guns
- Proposed forcing social media companies to develop tracking tools to “detect mass shooters before they strike”
- His DOJ took Google and Apple to court in an attempt to force them to turn over personal information of users of a phone app that calibrates rifle scopes
- Proposed creating a phone app to conduct remote background checks via the NICS system, giving government greater access to personal information without due process and eventually leading to the creation of a de facto national gun registry.
Based on their record during Joe Biden’s presidency, Republicans will likely be a rubber stamp on Donald Trump’s gun control agenda. For example, the Republican cave to the Far-Left’s gun control agenda was taken up a notch in 2022 when nine NRA-funded Republicans joined Democrats to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), legislation authored in 2021 by the man considered by many to be a contender for the job as Trump’s VP, Marco Rubio (also funded by the NRA).
Would you look at that!
9 out of top 11 highest NRA funded US Senators voted FOR selling out your gun rights to the Democrats.
In other words this compromise was brought to you by the @NRA.
Care to explain Wayne? @NRAILA pic.twitter.com/DfFFTShwgH
— National Association for Gun Rights (@NatlGunRights) June 22, 2022
One of the Democrat members of this group is Richard Blumenthal who, along with Lindsey Graham, introduced the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Act (FERPA) over six years ago. Under their federal version of Extreme Risk Protection Orders (aka ERPO or red flag), the decision to seize guns from individuals who have committed no crime would be moved from the state courts to the federal courts.
A slightly less radical but every bit as unconstitutional national red flag law was also introduced by Marco Rubio (and co-sponsor Susan Collins) shortly after the Blumenthal/Graham bill made headlines. Known as the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act of 2019, Rubio’s legislation authorized giving taxpayer money to incentivize coerce states into passing red flag laws. This bill served as the model for the “bipartisan” agreement announced over the weekend.
And here’s one more Marco Rubio gun control brainstorm from the time when the Republican Party controlled Washington: The Threat Assessment, Prevention, and Safety Act of 2019 (TAPS Act). Co-sponsored with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Rubio’s TAPS Act would have required law enforcement to give EVERYONE a personal threat assessment (adults and children) in order to single out those deemed to be a future threat and then “stop dangerous individuals before they can commit an act of violence.” (Emphasis mine)
Though it failed to become law at the time, provisions of the TAPS Act are receiving new life under Joe Biden.
Under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Trump and the Republican Party gave Joe Biden authority to do almost anything he desires concerning gun control, and he took immediate advantage of this newfound power in August 2023 when he issued a round of executive orders addressing background checks on “private” gun sales.
As I wrote in Part V of my Biden or Trump: Tyranny wins and liberty loses either way series, there is little-to-no difference between the two when it comes dismantling the Second Amendment. In fact, Trump’s pro-gun control, anti-Second Amendment presidency served as the foundation to Joe Biden’s assault on gun rights.
The bottom line is this: we can’t trust anyone in Washington to uphold the Second Amendment, which is why the Supreme Court ruling against Donald Trump’s bump stock ban is no reason to celebrate.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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