5 Supreme Court cases to watch in 2024

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Monday, January 08, 2024

Bump stock ban

An overcast sky hangs above the U.S. Supreme Court on December 16, 2019, in Washington, D.C. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Last November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments in the case of Garland v. Cargill, which looks to determine if the federal government can ban bump stocks, attachments that enable a semi-automatic rifle to function as an assault rifle.

"The case is a challenge to a regulation issued in the wake of the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas. The gunman there used semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump-stock devices to kill 60 people and wound 500 more," wrote Amy Howe of SCOTUSBlog.

"Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives issued a rule concluding that bump stocks are machineguns — a reversal from its earlier position that only certain types of bump stocks are machine guns. The rule directed anyone who owned or possessed a bump stock to destroy them or drop them at a nearby ATF office to avoid facing criminal penalties."

Both the 5th Circuit and 6th Circuit have released rulings against the bump stock ban, while the District of Columbia's appeals court upheld the federal ban.