Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals says previous administration’s ban may be unconstitutional.
A panel of judges on the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the ban placed on bump stocks in 2018 may have violated the Constitution. After a mass shooting in Las Vegas in which 58 people were killed, President Trump had issued an executive order which banned devices, including bump stocks, that would cause legal weapons to function more like machine guns.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives had reinterpreted the machine gun law to align with that executive order. The federal government used the “Chevron defense” which allows for the statutory interpretation to fall to the government agency charged with enforcing ambiguous regulations.
The Sixth Circuit stated in their decision, “It is not the role of the executive — particularly the unelected administrative state — to dictate to the public what is right and what is wrong. … In sum, for criminal statutes, where the primary question is what conduct should be condemned and punished, the first rationale of Chevron deference — deferring to an agency’s expertise — is unconvincing because the agency’s technical specialized knowledge does not assist in making the value-laden judgment underlying our criminal laws.” The judges concluded, “That judgment is reserved to the people through their duly elected representatives in Congress.”
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For wisdom for the judges in the federal court system as they determine questions of constitutionality.
- For Congress as they consider restrictions on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
- For God to give the president and his administration discernment as they consider gun control measures.
Sources: Reason, Daily Wire
