After the mass shooting on October 1, 2017 at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) undertook a reexamination of its prior determinations on the classification of bump-fire-stocks and similar devices (bump-stock-type devices). As a result, ATF has proposed a new rule reclassifying such devices as machineguns. Notice of the proposed rulemaking was published in the March 29th Federal Register and can be found here. The Presidential Memorandum calling on ATF to ban bump-stock-type devices can be found here.
A bump-stock-type device is a device affixed to a semiautomatic firearm (typically an AR or AK type rifle) that harnesses recoil energy to slide the firearm back and forth so that the firearm’s trigger “bumps” the shooter’s stationary trigger finger. In doing so, a bump-stock-type device equipped firearm mimics fully automatic mode. ATF estimates that as many as 520,000 such devices are currently held by the public.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) defines a machinegun as “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.” See, 26 U.S.C. 5846(b). With limited exceptions, the CGA prohibits the transfer or possession of machineguns. See, 18 U.S.C. 922(o).
Between 2008 and 2017 the ATF determined that bump-stock-type devices did not meet the statutory definition of a machinegun. Under the proposed rule, ATF would reclassify bump-stock-type devises as machineguns. Specifically, ATF has determined that such devices initiate an “automatic” firing cycle sequence “by a single function of the trigger” because the device is the primary impetus for a firing sequence that fires more than one shot with a “single pull of the trigger.”
The ATF proposes that 27 CFR parts 447, 478, and 479 be amended to add the following two sentences to the definition of machinegun:
“The term “machinegun” includes bump-stocktype devices, i.e., devices that allow a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter.”
If implemented, under the proposed rule bump-stock-type devices would come under the prohibitions on the transfer of machineguns as forth in the GCA.
Comments on the proposed rule are due on or before June 27, 2018.