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Page Number: 38

14 

GARLAND v. CARGILL 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

trigger  to  maintain  continuous  fire.    Ibid.    So,  too,  a  ma-
chinegun that requires a user to hold down a button.  Mak-
ers  of  automatic  weapons  may  require  continuous  human 
input for safety purposes; an accidental trigger pull that ac-
tivates  rapid  fire  is  less  harmful  if  it  does  not  require  af-
firmative human action to stop.  Requiring continuous pres-
sure  for  continuous  fire,  however,  does  not  prevent  a 
firearm  from  “shoot[ing],  automatically  more  than  one 
shot.”  §5845(b). 

C 
  This  Court  has  repeatedly  avoided  interpretations  of  a 
statute that would facilitate its ready “evasion” or “enable 
offenders to elude its provisions in the most easy manner.”  
The  Emily,  9  Wheat.  381,  389–390  (1824);  see  also 
Abramski  v.  United  States,  573  U. S.  169,  181–182,  185 
(2014) (declining to read a gun statute in a way that would 
permit  ready  “evasion,”  “defeat  the  point”  of  the  law,  or 
“easily bypass the scheme”).  Justice Scalia called this in-
terpretive  principle  the  “presumption  against  ineffective-
ness.”  A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpre-
tation  of  Legal  Texts  63  (2012).    The  majority  arrogates 
Congress’s  policymaking  role  to  itself  by  allowing  bump-
stock users to circumvent Congress’s ban on weapons that 
shoot rapidly via a single action of the shooter. 
  “The presumption against ineffectiveness ensures that a 
text’s  manifest  purpose  is  furthered,  not  hindered.”    Ibid.  
Before machineguns, a shooter could fire a gun only as fast 
as his finger could pull the trigger.  Congress sought to re-
strict  the  civilian  use  of machineguns  because  they  elimi-
nated the need for a person rapidly to pull the trigger him-
self to fire continuously.  A bump stock serves that function.  
Even a skilled sport shooter can fire an AR–15 at a rate of 
only 180 rounds per minute by rapidly pulling the trigger.  
Anyone shooting a bump-stock-equipped AR–15 can fire at 
a rate between 400 and 800 rounds per minute with a single