Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-976_e29g.pdf
Page Number: 40

16 

GARLAND v. CARGILL 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

lever to enable continuous fire.  ATF has classified such de-
vices as “machinegun[s]” since 1982.  See Record 1077.  In 
2003, the Fifth Circuit held that such a contraption quali-
fied  as  a  “machinegun”  under  the  statute.    See  United 
States v. Camp, 343 F. 3d 743, 745.  An owner of a semiau-
tomatic rifle had placed a fishing reel inside the weapon’s 
trigger guard.  Id., at 744.  When he pulled a switch behind 
the original trigger, the switch supplied power to a motor 
connected to the fishing reel.  Ibid.  The motor caused the 
reel  to  rotate,  and  that  rotation  manipulated  the  curved 
lever, causing it to fire in rapid succession.  Ibid.  ATF in 
2017  also  classified  as  a  “machinegun”  a  wearable  glove 
that a shooter could activate to initiate a mechanized piston 
moving back and forth, repeatedly pulling and releasing a 
semiautomatic rifle’s curved lever.  See Record 1074–1076.7 
  The majority tosses aside the presumption against inef-
fectiveness, claiming that its interpretation only “draws a 
line  more  narrowly  than  one  of  [Congress’s]  conceivable 
statutory purposes might suggest” because the statute still 
regulates “all traditional machineguns” like M16s.  Ante, at 
18.  Congress’s ban on M16s, however, is far less effective if 
a shooter can instead purchase a bump stock or construct a 
device that enables his AR–15 to fire at the same rate.  Even 
bump-stock manufacturers recognize that they are exploit-
ing a loophole, with one bragging on its website “Bumpfire 
Stocks  are  the  closest  you  can  get  to  full  auto  and  still  
be  legal.”    Midsouth  Shooters,  BUMPFIRE  SYSTEMS, 
https://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/b/bumpfire- 

—————— 

7 Respondent does not today challenge ATF’s classification of these de-
vices as “machinegun[s].”  His lawyer noted at oral argument, however, 
that “forced reset triggers” would be part of a category of “harder cases” 
where “there may be a question as to what exactly the trigger is and then 
how  does  that  trigger  function.”    Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  82.    That  ambiguity 
stems from the majority’s loophole for weapons that require multiple me-
chanical actions to fire continuously, even when a shooter initiates that 
fire with a single human action.