Duke Law Podcast | Analysis: Supreme Court overturns bump stock ban
The Duke Center for Firearms Law discusses the Court’s 6-3 ruling in Garland v. Cargill and its potential impact on the national debate on gun rights.
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In the wake of a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas, the Trump administration passed a regulation to ban bump stocks – a device that enables a semiautomatic rifle to fire rounds much like a machine gun. Last week, the conservative-majority Court struck down that ban in Garland v. Cargill, stating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives overstepped its authority in classifying bump stocks as machine guns.
In this episode of the Duke Law Podcast, the Duke Center for Firearms Law unpacks the Court’s ruling and discusses whether it offers insights into how the justices might approach future Second Amendment and gun rights cases.
Speakers:
Joseph Blocher
Lanty L. Smith ’67 Distinguished Professor of Law
Senior Associate Dean of Faculty
Faculty Co-director, Duke Center for Firearms Law
Darrell A.H. Miller
Co-founder, Duke Center for Firearms Law
Andrew Willinger (Guest Host)
Executive Director, Duke Center for Firearms Law
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Excerpts
On firearms exceptionalism:
Blocher - “We see in a lot of the Court’s cases where, when gun rights are at issue it seems to alter the direction of where you might expect [justices] to go on lots of different kinds of legal questions. In the context of Bruen, for example, justices who traditionally have been very hostile to equal protection claims – especially those just based on impact – were all of the sudden very worked up about the racially discriminatory impact of the enforcement of New York’s law.”
Where Cargill falls in national debate on gun rights:
Miller - “I think that one thing that everybody should understand is this is not a Second Amendment case. The real problem with the way a lot of media picks up a lot of gun cases, is that every gun case is denominated as a constitutional case. The Second Amendment is not anywhere in the reasoning or the law of the opinion. If anything it’s about the kind of atmospherics of gun rights and regulation, which always has, sort of, a Second Amendment penumbra over it.”
Bump stock laws at city and state levels:
Willinger - “Another interesting issue here is actually the potential for local action. You had some coverage of Philadelphia passing their own ban on bump stock shortly after the Cargill ruling came down. You usually don’t see cities acting to regulate guns in this way because most states have preemption laws that essentially say that only the state government can regulate with regard to firearms. But when you dig into those preemption laws, including the one in Pennsylvania that’s enforced there, they tend to only cover guns, ammunition, and, maybe, component parts of guns. And it’s not clear that bump stocks qualify. So, this may be an instance where you see even more of a patchwork because you have cities acting, as well, even if the state chooses not to ban bump stocks.”
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Resources:
Duke Center for Firearms Law
Second Thoughts Blog