As Twitchy reported Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the ATF's ban on bump stocks was unconstitutional. In short, Congress makes laws, not the ATF. Wise Latina Justice Sonya Sotomayor argued that a semiautomatic rifle fitted with a bump stock was a machine gun: "When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck," she argued, unsuccessfully.
The gun control crowd's argument has been just that: adding a bump stock to a semiautomatic rifle converts it into an automatic weapon. Vox went right ahead and made it their headline:
The Supreme Court just effectively legalized machine guns https://t.co/GtEcRLZqzJ
— Vox (@voxdotcom) June 14, 2024
How about that Community Note?
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The Supreme Court did not "effectively legalize machine guns"
They ruled that the ATF exceeded its authority by classifying "bump stocks" as machineguns. A "bump stock" does not convert semiautomatic guns into fully automatic guns, as this article claims.
Who wrote this? Why, of course, Vox Supreme Court reporter Ian Millhiser:
The six Republican justices handed down a decision on Friday that effectively legalizes civilian ownership of automatic weapons. All three of the Court’s Democrats dissented.
…
A semiautomatic weapon refers to a gun that loads a bullet into the chamber or otherwise prepares itself to fire again after discharging a bullet, but that will not fire a second bullet until the shooter pulls the trigger a second time. An automatic weapon, by contrast, will fire a continuous stream of bullets.
…
Some courts concluded that the phrase “a single function of the trigger” should be read to mean, as one of those courts put it, “a single pull of the trigger from the perspective of the shooter.” Thus, a semiautomatic weapon equipped with a bump stock counts as a machine gun because “the shooter engages in a single pull of the trigger with her trigger finger, and that action, via the operation of the bump stock, yields a continuous stream of fire as long she keeps her finger stationary and does not release it.”
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What the hell does "a single pull of the trigger from the perspective of the shooter" mean? A semiautomatic weapon remains a semiautomatic weapon with a bump stock, requiring the shooter to pull the trigger each time. It does not "effectively" legalize machine guns.
Vox just effectively showed they cannot read and comprehend the English language. Again
— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) June 14, 2024
“Vox is effectively lying to people”
— Billy Gribbin (@BillyGribbin) June 14, 2024
"effectively" is doing a lot of work here
— pragmatometer (@pragmatometer) June 14, 2024
No they didn't. But the fact that you have to lie shows why you're failing. SCOTUS ruled that the separation of powers was violated.
— Joe McWopSki (@LakesFirearmsTr) June 14, 2024
Millhiser moment
— Damin Toell (@damintoell) June 14, 2024
This, of course, is a lie.
— Shooting News Weekly (@SN_Weekly_) June 14, 2024
There's a black letter law statute on the books defining a machine gun. ATF bent itself into a pretzel to reclass bump stocks as machine guns so they could ban them under the NFA. SCOTUS read the law and said NFW...if you don't like it, rewrite it.
This ratio is growing at bump stock speeds.
— pragmatometer (@pragmatometer) June 14, 2024
According to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, that's 800 rounds a second.
Oh? So I can go get a brand new M249?
— Frank (@richardrahl1086) June 14, 2024
I know you all are down to a skeleton crew, but someone there has to know that’s not what the ruling was about…at all.
— Bleu Cheque (@VERBAL_CHANCLA) June 14, 2024
I'm not saying you don't have a right to lie. But this lie is an assault lie. Nobody needs an assault lie.
— Antonio (@djtechchicago) June 14, 2024
I think you guys are having trouble with what a machine gun is. Would you like help?
— ArchLobster 🇪🇨 🇺🇸 (@ArchLobster) June 14, 2024
Repealing the NFA would legalize machine guns. This ruling did no such thing.
— Toots McQueen (@TootsMcQueen) June 14, 2024
I hope the word "effectively" has been hitting the gym because it's pulling a lot of weight here.
— Joseph Michael (@RegalMill388) June 14, 2024
SCOTUS just told Congress to do their job.
— VARout Cockerel (@CoysRtr) June 14, 2024
I mean, I wish they had. Citizens should have access to whatever the military does. It was sort of the whole point of 2A. But no, that is not what happened.
— TexanByBirth&Choice (@Txnbybirth) June 15, 2024
Nobody forced you to commit this self-own.
— Jay Bienvenu (@JayBienvenu) June 14, 2024
Vox pumping out misinformation again.
— Clinton Colasanti 🇺🇸 (@RutileBlue1) June 15, 2024
They didn’t at all. They didn’t even directly say that banning bump stocks were unconstitutional. They just said that the ATF has no constitutional authority to write law.
— Justine (@BruinJustine) June 14, 2024
You'd think a reporter dedicated to covering the Supreme Court would know that.
What intern wrote this headline??
— TheRealJoeFL65 (@TheRealJoeFL65) June 14, 2024
They're right, "effectively" is doing a lot of hefty lifting in this headline. It's the worst one we've seen since The Hill reported that Harrison Butker told female graduates that "their rightful place is in the kitchen."
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