Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-976_e29g.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

1 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 22–976 
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MERRICK B. GARLAND, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL., 
PETITIONERS v. MICHAEL CARGILL 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT 

[June 14, 2024] 

  JUSTICE  SOTOMAYOR,  with  whom  JUSTICE  KAGAN  and 
JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting. 
  On  October  1,  2017,  a  shooter  opened  fire  from  a  hotel 
room overlooking an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, Nevada, 
in what would become the deadliest mass shooting in U. S. 
history.  Within a matter of minutes, using several hundred 
rounds  of  ammunition,  the  shooter  killed  58  people  and 
wounded  over  500.    He  did  so  by  affixing  bump  stocks  to 
commonly  available,  semiautomatic  rifles.    These  simple 
devices harness a rifle’s recoil energy to slide the rifle back 
and  forth  and  repeatedly  “bump”  the  shooter’s  stationary 
trigger finger, creating rapid fire.  All the shooter had to do 
was pull the trigger and press the gun forward.  The bump 
stock did the rest. 
  Congress has sharply restricted civilian ownership of ma-
chineguns since 1934.  Federal law defines a “machinegun” 
as a weapon that can shoot “automatically more than one 
shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the 
trigger.”  26 U. S. C. §5845(b).  Shortly after the Las Vegas 
massacre, the Trump administration, with widespread bi-
partisan support, banned bump stocks as machineguns un-
der the statute. 
  Today,  the  Court  puts  bump  stocks  back  in  civilian 
hands.  To do so, it casts aside Congress’s definition of “ma-
chinegun” and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the