An Illinois firearms owner is asking the court not to allow the federal government to file supplemental authority of two unrelated cases in a bump stock class action that “has been ready for a decision for about a year.”
The class action seeks 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.
John Doe filed an objection to the government’s motion for leave to file notice of supplemental authority on Feb. 22 through attorney Thomas Maag of Maag Law Firm LLC in Wood River.
“This case has been fully briefed and ready for a decision for about a year,” Maag wrote. “The United States Supreme Court has already indicated that it is interested in, and watching these cases.”
Maag argues that the defendant seeks to supplement the record with two unpublished trial court orders that deal with bump stocks but do not deal with the issues in dispute in Doe’s case.
“[T]he cases are based on substantially different theories,” he wrote.
“They are simply two cases that defendant won at the trial court level, that use the word bumpstock in the order,” he added.
In the cases the defendant seeks to cite, the legal question is whether the National Firearm Act’s definition of “machinegun” includes bump stock devices.
“In this case, plaintiff, for purposes of the lawsuit, concedes the items are machineguns, and defendants even note it in their summary judgment motion, which, as noted supra, was the primary legal question in the two cases,” Maag wrote.
“Though notably, in what apparently is the only criminal prosecution brought for bump stock possession, the federal government dropped the case, due to the anticipated expert testimony that ATF’s ruling on bump stocks mis-states how they work, and that they don’t in fact, meet the statutory definition of machinegun,” he added.
The defendants filed the motion for leave to file notice of supplemental authority through attorney Michael Knapp. They seek to advise the court of two recent decisions out of the District Court for the District of Columbia, which granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in cases regarding bump stocks.
“The plaintiffs in those cases challenged the same Bump-Stock Type Devices Rule at issue in this case. Of particular relevance, the district court rejected the plaintiffs’ takings claim and their void-for-vaguenss claim,” the motion states.
Doe filed the class action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The suit was originally filed against former President Donald Trump, former US Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, and Thomas Brandon, former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). However, the named defendants were listed as Joseph Biden, et. al. in the motion for leave to file notice of supplemental authority.
The class action was filed in response to the Department of Justice’s Final Rule adopted 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.”
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,’” Yandle wrote.
According to the complaint, Bump-stocks attach to semiautomatic firearms in replacement 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.”
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.”
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois case number 3:19-cv-6