Chemerinsky: Supreme Court went out of its way to ignore common sense on bump stocks

A North Raleigh Guns employee demonstrates how a bump stock works at the Raleigh, N.C., shop on Feb. 1, 2013.

A bump stock, however, allows a semiautomatic gun to repeatedly fire, at nearly the rate of a machine gun. A rifle equipped with a bump stock can fire at a rate of between 400 and 800 rounds per minute. The new ATF rule made enormous sense. A weapon outfitted with a bump stock is for all intents and purposes a machine gun; common sense dictates that it should fall under the federal ban. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent on Friday, “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.”

Both Thomas’ majority opinion and Sotomayor’s dissent include detailed descriptions of how bump stocks work. Both agree, and it is unassailable, that bump stocks allow a semiautomatic weapon to perform as a machine gun though the mechanics are slightly — very slightly — different. And it also is undeniable that such weapons can kill a large number of people in a short amount of time.

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The Supreme Court went out of its way to ignore common sense on bump stocksThe only explanation for the Supreme Court's 6-3 bump stock decision is that the ultraconservative majority supports gun rights virtually without question.
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