By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
The ATF has started the embarrassing process of returning bump-stocks to their original owners after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the agency wrongfully determined they were machineguns, but only if the owners act within 90 days.
The ATF sent letters titled “Notice of Opportunity to Request Return of Bump Stock(s) in ATF Custody” last week. They include an address in Washington D.C. and an email that the former owners can contact to arrange for the return of their property. Once the requests are processed, the letter states, “you will be contacted by someone from the local ATF field office to arrange retrieval of your bump stock(s).”
“In the interest of returning your item as soon as possible, please submit your claim form within 90 days of this letter,” the ATF states. “Bump stocks which remain unclaimed after that time may be considered unclaimed or abandoned and may be subject to disposal.”
Florida Carry, Inc., purchased an SSAR-15 bump-stock from Slide Fire Solutions, Inc., for demonstration and educational purposes before the ban was enacted. It was surrendered to the ATF “under protest,” and Florida Carry became a co-plaintiff in Guedes v. ATF, along with the Firearms Policy Foundation, Damien Guedes, the Madison Society Foundation, Inc., and Shane Roden.
Florida Carry co-founder and co-executive director, Sean Caranna was, once again, struck by the ATF’s arbitrariness in setting the 90-day deadline.
“Rather than simply returning people’s property, the ATF has established a bureaucratic and paperwork burden on law-abiding Americans in an attempt to run out the 90-day clock that the ATF has created without any statutory authority,” Caranna said. “Clearly, ATF leadership has learned nothing from the Supreme Court’s mandate that government agencies can’t make up new rules that are not expressly provided for by law.”
The ATF letter, which was sent last week to Florida Carry’s General Counsel, Eric Friday, cited the Supreme Court case Garland v. Cargill, stating: “The U.S. Supreme Court held that non-mechanical bump stock – a bump stock that relies on the forward pressure from the shooter’s non-trigger hand to force the rifle and trigger forward after recoil – is not a ‘machinegun’ as defined in the National Firearms Act. Accordingly, you are hereby notified that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is currently in possession of the bump stocks described above in which you may have an interest.”
The ATF never mentioned how the High Court chastised them for flip-flopping on what constitutes a machinegun:
“For many years, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) consistently took the position that semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks were not machineguns. ATF abruptly changed course when a gunman using semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks fired hundreds of rounds into a crowd in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing 58 people and wounding over 500 more. ATF subsequently proposed a rule that would repudiate its previous guidance and amend its regulations to ‘clarify’ that bump stocks are machineguns. ATF’s Rule ordered owners of bump stocks either to destroy or surrender them to ATF to avoid criminal prosecution,” the Justices wrote in their opinion.
More than a dozen states, including Florida, still prohibit possession of bump-stocks. The ATF warns that the owners will be held responsible for complying with state and local laws once the device is returned.
By arbitrarily establishing the 90-day return window, the ATF has created an internal precedent that it will likely use when it is ordered to return other firearm accessories that were unconstitutionally seized by its agents, including pistol braces, aftermarket triggers and more.
Lee Williams is a board member of Florida Carry, Inc.
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