New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin expressed disbelief over the United States Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) decision to strike down the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) bump stock ban. SCOTUS’s six-to-three decision was reported by Breitbart News on Friday, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion.
Thomas made it clear that bump stocks do not transform semiautomatic firearms into automatic firearms, stating, “Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns.” He added, “This case asks whether a bump stock—an accessory for a semi-automatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)—converts the rifle into a “machinegun.” We hold that it does not.
Despite the SCOTUS decision, Platkin maintained his stance on bump stocks and their potential danger, stating that they “convert semiautomatic rifles into machine guns.” He reminded New Jersey residents that while SCOTUS struck down the federal ban on bump stocks, the devices are banned at the state level, and he plans to enforce it “to the fullest extent.
Platkin further argued, “There is no valid reason for any law-abiding citizen to own a device capable of causing extreme bloodshed.” On October 17, 2017, Breitbart News highlighted an ATF Association letter that informed lawmakers the ATF approved bump stocks because they do not transform a semiautomatic rifle into “a machine gun.
The case in which SCOTUS struck down the bump stock ban was Garland v. Cargill. AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He can be reached at [email protected].