Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost as well as AGs from 16 other states are looking to overturn the federal bump stock ban.
AG Yost and his colleagues have asked a federal court of appeals to overturn the nationwide ban on bump stocks in a brief that was filed on Monday. All AGs involved in this case are Republicans and they are specifically asking for the court to overturn the Trump Administration rule that labels any rifle with a bump stock a machine gun.
Currently, all machine guns made after 1986 are barred from civilian hands and the rule is that bump stocks make perfectly legal guns, machine guns.
Part of the assertion by Yost and his colleagues is that only Congress has the authority to redefine “machine gun” not the ATF or any other agency. Theoretically, if the court were to side with Yost, then many other rules pushed by the ATF would be placed under new scrutiny.
The brief states “These agencies are not permitted to use their limited policymaking authority to invent new law—particularly when their decisions impose criminal penalties and implicate fundamental constitutional rights.”
A three-judge panel has already ruled that the ban was likely unconstitutional, this suggests that this higher court will uphold the ruling on similar grounds.
