District Judge Staci Yandle denied preliminary injunction in a class action seeking immunity for those who legally purchased bump stock devices prior to the passing of the “Final Rule,” which classifies the devices as machine guns and prohibits their possession.
Plaintiff John Doe sought preliminary injunction to enjoin enforcement of the Department of Justice’s Final Rule as it applies to those who possessed a bump stock on or before Dec. 18, 2018.
“A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary and drastic remedy requiring the movant to demonstrate its justification by a clear showing,” Yandle wrote. “Plaintiff fails to clear this hurdle, and the motion is denied.”
The Final Rule was issued by the Department of Justice to ensure that bump stocks are not used to circumvent a rule under the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 that prohibits people to transfer or possess a machine gun. It went into effect March 26, 2019.
The National Firearms Act of 1934 defines a machine gun as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”
The Final Rule extends the classification of “machine gun” to bump stock devices, which “permit a semiautomatic weapon to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger ‘by harnessing the recoil energy’ ‘so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter,’” the order states.
Yandle wrote in her order that Doe “asserts irreparable harm is certain absent a preliminary injunction because his options are to either face criminal prosecution if he retains his bump stock devices or voluntarily destroy the devices.”
She wrote Doe agrees that the Final Rule’s classification of bump stacks as machine guns is correct, but he “simply challenges the official interpretation of a statute.” He argues that an initial registration or amnesty period for newly regulated bump stock devices should not be prohibited.
Doe further argues that the defendants lacked authority to institute an amnesty or initial registration period and that such an interpretation is unconstitutional. The defendants include President Donald Trump, US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, and Thomas Brandon, who is the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Yandle concluded that Doe “fails to raise any meaningful argument demonstrating even a negligible likelihood that he will succeed on the merits of his asserted claim.”
She added that every court that has previously addressed this issue were faced with “more robust arguments than plaintiff advances” and denied motions for preliminary injunctions, “finding the plaintiffs could not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.”
Doe filed the class action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois through attorney Thomas Maag of the Maag Law Firm LLC in Wood River.
The class action was filed in response to a rule adopted by the ATF in December 2018, retroactively redefining bump-fire stocks as machineguns under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Gun Control Act of 1968. Until the new rule was published, the ATF had classified bump-stocks as firearm “parts.”
Bump-stocks attach to semiautomatic firearms in replace of the standard stock and speed up their firing rate, similar to that of an automatic weapon. They are notoriously associated with the mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival in October 2017. A gunman fired more than 1,000 rounds form his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing 58 and injuring approximately 500 while using the device.
Maag wrote the DOJ officially announced that anyone who possesses the devices must either destroy them or surrender them to the ATF without compensation within a 90-day period, which is considered ATF’s Final Rule. Court records indicate that the 90-day period began to run on March 26 when the Final Rule went into effect.
Maag alleges the class would be irreparably harmed if the proposed regulations went into effect, “and thus, this court should enjoin same, pending a resolution on the merits, and/or remand to the administrative agency.”
According to the class action, Doe has been in possession of one or more bump-stock or bump firing devices since before Dec. 18, 2018. He alleges the devices were purchased or acquired in accordance with all applicable laws, rules, regulations and rulings in effect at the time they were purchased.
The suit states that Doe seeks to lawfully register the devices in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. If registration is legally impossible, then Doe seeks “just compensation under the Fifth Amendment, for a total regulatory and/or actual taking.”
The suit states that the Department of Justice reports that there are approximately 500,000 bump fire devices sold legally and currently in private civilian possession. They are worth approximately $200 to $500 each.
“In truth and fact, there are likely as many as double that many, as the DOJ numbers do not [take] into consideration pre-2010 produced devices, which have been sold since at least the 1980s, or smaller custom manufacturers who copied the devices, all of which with either express ATF approval, or non-action by the ATF when made aware of same,” the suit states.
Maag wrote that the defendants do not have the authority to institute an amnesty registration period under the Gun Control Act of 1968. He asks the court to find that an amnesty registration period would provide an immunity for registered firearms. He also asks the court to find that “defendants have abused their discretion and acted arbitrarily and capriciously.”
Maag further seeks an injunction to enjoin enforcement of the rule for those who possessed a bump-stock “on or before December 18, 2019, and continue to retain possession of same.”
The defendants previously filed an opposition to Doe’s motion for preliminary injunction on April 17, arguing that the Final Rule “corrected a confusing and erroneous agency interpretation” of the statute prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and possession of new machine guns to the public, “to the expected benefit of public safety.”