Two liberal Supreme Court Justices show America they know shockingly little about firearms - or the law

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, clearly one of the most unqualified justices ever to sit on the Supreme Court, not only doesn’t know the difference between men and women. She also is clueless about how guns really work. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact she is one of the most influential jurists in the country. 

During oral arguments before the high court this week, Brown-Jackson, along with the equally stupid Elena Kagan, claimed that bump stock-equipped firearms are capable of firing up to 800 rounds a second, or 48,000 rounds a minute. The sheer absurdity…no stupidity…of such a claim is mind-boggling. Yet liberals believe it. 

The Federalist reports that was precisely the claims made during this week’s hearing. With precisely zero evidence to back up that claim, our two esteemed justices went with that argument. 

As The Federalist notes, under standard questioning, justices would seek the answer to the following question: Do bump stocks qualify as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger?” That is the definition of such a device or weapon under the 1934 National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act, which outlawed any device that results “in converting a weapon into a machine gun.” 

Clearly, bump stocks do not come close to fitting that definition. Kagan and Brown-Jackson did not limit their remarks to answering that narrow question. Instead, as The Federalist noted, the oral arguments in the case before them, Garland v. Cargill, “devolved into confusing hypotheticals and debates that stemmed from justices’ incredibly limited understanding of how guns work.” 

Perhaps if one of the above two took the time to conduct some research, they could have found out what exactly bump stocks are and what they can do. What they cannot do is convert a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon or machine gun, which indeed can discharge hundreds of rounds per minute with a single trigger pull. 

What is a bump stock? According to the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA), a bump stock “is an aftermarket product designed to make a semi-automatic rifle fire faster. It is used to replace the rifle’s stock–the part held against the shoulder–freeing it to slide back and forth rapidly and harness the recoil energy.” 

Disabled shooters often use bump stocks to assist with trigger dexterity. However, the device doesn’t make a weapon automatic since a user must still initiate a trigger pull for every shot. 

Yet both Kagan and Brown-Jackson insisted that firearms equipped with bump stocks are capable of firing 800 rounds per second, as Kagan said, “a torrent of bullets.” The plaintiff’s attorney, Johnathan Mitchell, had to correct our hapless justices several times. 

“Why would even a person with arthritis think they need to shoot 400 to seven or 800 rounds of ammunition under any circumstance if you don’t let a person without arthritis do that,” dingleberry Kagan asked. 

Mitchell, who must have been exasperated by the sheer stupidity of the question, tried to explain the capabilities of a bump stock to Kagan. 

“They don’t shoot 400 to 700 rounds because the magazine only goes up to 50,” Mitchell explained, noting that “rapid fire is not the test under the statute.” 

“So you’re still going to have to change the magazine after every round [of fire].” 

Mitchell also had to correct Brown Jackson’s made-up assertion that using a bump stock to fire a weapon only required one trigger pull. 

“It’s factually incorrect to say that a function to the trigger automatically starts some chain reaction that propels multiple bullets from the gun. A function of the trigger fires one shot, then the shooter must take additional manual action,” the attorney explained. 

Mitchell explained to our esteemed jurists that “the bump stock is neither necessary nor sufficient for the firing of the weapon,” therefore, the federal government’s move to outlaw bump stocks based on a provision that talks of “the single function of the trigger” is not applicable. Kagan was later forced to admit that she didn’t “know about these things,” but she still said, "Textualism is not inconsistent with common sense.” 

So you see, the rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights are supposed to fulfill the idea someone has about “common sense,” and we know liberals have none. 

“At some point, you have to apply a little bit of common sense to the way you read a statute and understand that what the statute comprehends is a weapon that fires a multitude of shots with a single human action, whether it’s continuous pressure on a conventional machine gun, pulling the trigger, or a continuous pressure on one of these devices on the barrel,” Kagan said. 

Bump stocks were initially outlawed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in the early 2000s, however, Americans who owned “non-mechanical” bump stocks were allowed to keep them since the ATF determined those require “constant application of forward pressure with the non-shooting hand and constant rearward pressure with the shooting hand.” 

All of that changed in 2017 after a mass shooting in Las Vegas, where the assailant used rifles equipped with bump stocks to kill 58 persons and injure hundreds more. After that incident, the federal government, under the Trump administration, changed the definition of “machine gun” to include non-mechanical bump stocks. 

While Congress was moving to ban bump stocks through the legislative process, ATF jumped the gun (no pun intended) and proposed a rule to revise the rule “that non-mechanical bump stocks are not machineguns for purposes of the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act.” 

Just about a year later, the government issued a rule changing the definition of machine guns to include semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks. Machine guns are banned from private ownership unless the owner receives special government permission. After that rule was issued, Americans were forced to destroy or surrender their bump stocks to the federal government. The plaintiff in this case, Texas gun store owner Michal Cargill, was among those forced to comply. 

“Everything about the bump firing process is manual. There is no automated device such as a spring or a motor in any of Mr. Cargill’s non-mechanical bump stocks,” Mitchell said. “The process depends entirely on human effort and exertion, as the shooter must continually and repeatedly thrust the force stock of the rifle forward with his non-shooting hand while simultaneously maintaining backward pressure on the weapon with his shooting hand.” 

The case has been winding its way through the court system for years and received two rulings in the Fifth and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals. In 2021, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the bump stock ban was unconstitutional and, therefore, not enforceable by the ATF. Then, in 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reached the same conclusion, ruling the ATF didn’t have the authority to change the classification of bump stocks. 

As expected, the Biden Department of Justice appealed, which sent the case to the Supreme Court. 

“The problem for the government is they’re not able to change the nature of the trigger that currently exists on a semiautomatic rifle simply by adding a bump stock, which is nothing more than a casing that allows the rifle to slide back and forth. The trigger is exactly the same as it was before, and the function of the trigger is exactly the same as what it was before,” Mitchell emphasized during oral arguments. 

In particular, the ATF’s argument didn’t sit well with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who said that “through many administrations, the government took the position that these bump stocks are not machine guns.” 

“And then you adopted an interpretive rule, not even a legislative rule, saying otherwise that would render a quarter of a million and a half million people federal felons. And not even through an APA process they could challenge, subject to ten years in federal prison. And the only way they can challenge it is if they’re prosecuted.” 

That is a flagrant violation of the constitutional right to due process. 

Gorsuch also admonished that a prosecution carried out by the federal government over the ATF bump stock rule could have the effect of depriving law-abiding Americans “of guns or guns in the future, as well as a lot of other rights, including the right to vote,” explicitly criticizing the government’s zeal in rushing the rule through. 

Conversely, U.S. Principal Solicitor General Brian Fletcher disputed Gorsuch’s claim about rushing the rule through, claiming the government attempted to “maximize public notice” about the rule change, publishing it in the Federal Register. 

That didn’t impress Gorsuch, who mocked Fletcher’s contention. 

“Because people will sit down and read the Federal Register. That’s what they do in their evening for fun. Gun owners across the country crack it open next to the fire,” Gorsuch said. 

Fletcher admitted to Justice Samuel Alito that Americans who continued to possess the bump stocks between the implementation of the rule in 2018 and the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court's decision to strike it down could be eligible for prosecution by the federal government. 

“I’m not aware of a lot of these prosecutions being brought because we recognize there is some legal uncertainty, but I think doctrinally that could happen all the time,” Fletcher said. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Fletcher if they could still be convicted if someone was unaware of the bump stock rule, to which he replied the government could and might prosecute them. 

Lest anyone think the government wouldn’t target gun owners for harassment and prosecution, see January 6 and anyone who was within earshot of the US Capitol.