Machine Gun Rule Covering Bumpstocks Beats Another Challenge (1)

A federal rule treating firearms with bumpstocks, even those previously excluded from regulation, as machine guns is valid, the Federal Circuit said Monday.

A bumpstock is an attachment that allows semi-automatic rifles to fire as if they are machine guns. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives previously regulated most bumpstock devices, but not those that didn’t rely on internal springs to channel recoil energy.

After the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, ATF amended the rule to regulate all bumpstocks, including those that were previously excluded. People who owned those devices had to either destroy them or turn ...