最高法院推翻特朗普时代对撞火枪托、速射枪配件的禁令，这些配件用于 2017 年拉斯维加斯大屠杀
【中美创新时报2024 年 6 月 14 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）最高法院周五推翻了特朗普时代对撞火枪托的禁令，撞火枪托是美国现代史上最致命的大规模枪击案中使用的速射枪配件，这一裁决让枪支再次成为美国政治焦点。对此，美联社作了下述详细报道。
最高法院的保守派多数派认为，特朗普政府改变了前任的做法，禁止了撞火枪托，这种枪托的射速可与机枪相媲美，这是越权行为。此前，拉斯维加斯一名枪手用配备配件的半自动步枪袭击了一场乡村音乐节。
枪手在 11 分钟内向人群发射了 1,000 多发子弹，数千人惊恐地四处逃窜，数百人受伤，数十人死亡。
这项裁决以不同寻常的方式将枪支推回了政治对话的中心，因为民主党谴责共和党政府撤销了这项裁决，而许多共和党人支持这项裁决。
大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯以 6 比 3 的多数票撰写了意见书，认为司法部宣布撞火枪托将半自动步枪变成了非法机枪是错误的，因为他写道，每次快速连续按下扳机仍然只能发射一发子弹。
这项裁决加强了行政权力的界限，两位大法官——保守派法官塞缪尔·阿利托和自由派法官索尼娅·索托马约尔——分别强调，如果有政治意愿以两党合作的方式采取行动，国会的行动可能会提供更持久的政策。
最初，在唐纳德·特朗普担任总统期间，通过监管而不是立法实施禁令，减轻了共和党在佛罗里达州帕克兰一所高中发生屠杀和另一起大规模枪击事件后采取行动的压力。在目前分裂的国会中，通过枪支限制的前景黯淡。
支持枪支限制的总统乔·拜登呼吁国会恢复其政治对手实施的禁令。与此同时，特朗普的竞选团队表示尊重这项裁决，然后迅速转向全国步枪协会对他的支持。
在竞选连任总统期间，特朗普一直在争取枪支拥有者的支持，但他似乎淡化了自己政府在撞火枪托问题上的行动，他在 2 月份告诉全国步枪协会成员，尽管“面临巨大压力”，但在他担任总统期间，枪支问题“没有发生任何变化”。他告诉该组织，如果他再次当选，“没有人会碰你们的枪。”
2017 年拉斯维加斯的大规模枪击案是由一名高赌注赌徒自杀的，他的确切动机仍是一个谜。枪击事件共造成 60 人死亡，其中包括克里斯蒂安娜·杜阿尔特，她的家人称周五的裁决是一场悲剧。
“这项裁决实际上只是邀请人们再次进行大规模枪击的另一种方式，”家庭朋友兼发言人丹妮特·迈耶斯 (Danette Meyers) 说。“很遗憾他们不得不再次经历这种事情。他们真的很不高兴。”
此前，最高法院保守派的绝对多数做出了一项具有里程碑意义的裁决，将在 2022 年扩大枪支权利。最高法院预计还将在未来几周对另一起枪支案件作出裁决，挑战一项旨在禁止家庭暴力限制令下的人持有枪支的联邦法律。
不过，撞火枪托案中的争论并不在于第二修正案权利，而在于司法部机构烟酒火器和爆炸物管理局是否超越了其权限。
撞火枪托是替代步枪枪托的配件，枪托是靠在肩膀上的部分。它们是在 2000 年代发明的，利用枪支的后坐力，使扳机撞击射击者静止的手指，从而使枪支以与自动武器类似的速度射击。
最高法院多数人发现，1934 年的机枪法将机枪定义为可以通过扳机的单一功能自动发射多发子弹的武器。撞火枪托不符合该定义，因为“每次额外射击时仍必须释放和重新接合扳机”，托马斯写道。他还指出，ATF 十多年来的调查结果都声称撞火枪托不是自动武器。
原告、德克萨斯州枪支店老板兼退伍军人迈克尔·卡吉尔在网上发布的视频中对这项裁决表示赞赏，并预测该案件将产生连锁反应，阻碍 ATF 的其他枪支限制。“我很高兴我站出来抗争，”他说。
在自由派同事的反对意见中，索托马约尔大法官表示撞火枪托符合法律的一般含义：“当我看到一只像鸭子一样走路、像鸭子一样游泳、像鸭子一样嘎嘎叫的鸟时，我会称那只鸟为鸭子，”她写道。她说，这项裁决可能会束缚 ATF 的权力，并带来“致命的后果”。
ATF 主任史蒂夫·德特尔巴赫也表达了同样的看法，他说撞火枪托“对公共安全构成了不可接受的风险”。
在下级法院出现分歧后，最高法院受理了此案。在共和党总统乔治·W·布什和民主党总统巴拉克·奥巴马的领导下，ATF 裁定撞火枪托不会将半自动武器变成机枪。在特朗普的敦促下，该机构推翻了这些决定。那是在拉斯维加斯大屠杀和佛罗里达州帕克兰枪击案造成 17 人死亡之后。
据枪支管制组织 Everytown 称，16 个州和哥伦比亚特区都有自己的撞火枪托禁令，预计不会受到该裁决的影响，但 4 个州的禁令可能在裁决后不再涵盖撞火枪托。
卡吉尔的代表是新公民自由联盟，该组织由科赫网络等保守派捐助者资助。他的律师承认撞火枪托可以快速射击，但辩称它们有所不同，因为射手必须付出更多努力才能保持枪支射击。
拜登政府辩称，这种努力微不足道，并表示 ATF 在拉斯维加斯枪击案的推动下对撞火枪托进行了更深入的调查后得出了正确的结论。
原告在法庭文件中表示，当禁令于 2019 年生效时，流通的撞火枪托约为 520,000 支，要求人们交出或销毁它们，估计损失总额为 1 亿美元。
美联社驻华盛顿记者马克·谢尔曼和法努什·阿米里、驻纽约记者吉尔·科尔文和驻德克萨斯州奥斯汀记者吉姆·维尔图诺对本报道亦有贡献。
题图：撞火枪托。STEVE HELBER/美联社
附原英文报道：
Supreme Court strikes down Trump-era ban on bump stocks, rapid-fire gun accessories used in 2017 Las Vegas massacre
By The Associated PressUpdated June 14, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, the rapid-fire gun accessories used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in a ruling that threw firearms back into the nation’s political spotlight.
The high court’s conservative majority found that the Trump administration overstepped when it changed course from predecessors and banned bump stocks, which allow a rate of fire comparable to machine guns. The decision came after a gunman in Las Vegas attacked a country music festival with semiautomatic rifles equipped with the accessories.
The gunman fired more than 1,000 rounds into the crowd in 11 minutes, sending thousands of people fleeing in terror as hundreds were wounded and dozens killed.
The ruling thrust guns back into the center of the political conversation with an unusual twist as Democrats decried the reversal of a GOP administration’s action and many Republicans backed the ruling.
The 6-3 majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas found the Justice Department was wrong to declare that bump stocks transformed semiautomatic rifles into illegal machine guns because, he wrote, each trigger depression in rapid succession still only releases one shot.
The ruling reinforced the limits of executive reach and two justices — conservative Samuel Alito and liberal Sonia Sotomayor — separately highlighted how action in Congress could potentially provide a more lasting policy, if there was political will to act in a bipartisan fashion.
Originally, imposing a ban through regulation rather than legislation during Donald Trump’s presidency took pressure off Republicans to act following the massacre and another mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Prospects for passing gun restrictions in the current divided Congress are dim.
President Joe Biden, who supports gun restrictions, called on Congress to reinstate the ban imposed under his political foe. Trump’s campaign team meanwhile, expressed respect for the ruling before quickly pivoting to his endorsement by the National Rifle Association.
As Trump courts gun owners while running to retake the presidency, he has appeared to play down his own administration’s actions on bump stocks, telling NRA members in February that “nothing happened” on guns during his presidency despite “great pressure.” He told the group that if he is elected again, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms.”
The 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas was carried out by a high-stakes gambler who killed himself, leaving his exact motive a mystery. A total of 60 people were killed in the shooting, including Christiana Duarte, whose family called Friday’s ruling tragic.
“The ruling is really just another way of inviting people to have another mass shooting,” said Danette Meyers, a family friend and spokesperson. “It’s unfortunate that they have to relive this again. They’re really unhappy.”
The opinion comes after the same Supreme Court conservative supermajority handed down a landmark decision expanding gun rights in 2022. The high court is also expected to rule in another gun case in the coming weeks, challenging a federal law intended to keep guns away from people under domestic violence restraining orders.
The arguments in the bump stock case, though, were less about Second Amendment rights and more about whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a Justice Department agency, had overstepped its authority.
Bump stocks are accessories that replace a rifle’s stock, the part that rests against the shoulder. Invented in the 2000s, they harness the gun’s recoil energy so that the trigger bumps against the shooter’s stationary finger, allowing the gun to fire at a similar speed as an automatic weapon.
The Supreme Court majority found that the 1934 law against machine guns defined them as weapons that could automatically fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. Bump stocks don’t fit that definition because “the trigger must still be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot,” Thomas wrote. He also pointed to over a decade of ATF’s findings that claimed bump stocks weren’t automatic weapons.
The plaintiff, Texas gun shop owner and military veteran Michael Cargill, applauded the ruling in a video posted online, predicting the case would have ripple effects by hampering other ATF gun restrictions. “I’m glad I stood up and fought,” he said.
In a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues, Justice Sotomayor said that bump stocks fit under the ordinary meaning of the law: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she wrote. The ruling, she said, could hamstring the ATF and have “deadly consequences.”
ATF Director Steve Dettelbach echoed the sentiment, saying that bump stocks “pose an unacceptable level of risk to public safety.”
The high court took up the case after a split among lower courts. Under Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, the ATF decided that bump stocks didn’t transform semiautomatic weapons into machine guns. The agency reversed those decisions at Trump’s urging. That was after the Las Vegas massacre and the Parkland, Florida shooting that left 17 dead.
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have their own bans on bump stocks that aren’t expected to be affected by the ruling, though four state bans may no longer cover bump stocks in the wake of the ruling, according to the gun-control group Everytown.
Cargill was represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a group funded by conservative donors like the Koch network. His attorneys acknowledged that bump stocks allow for rapid fire but argued that they are different because the shooter has to put in more effort to keep the gun firing.
The Biden administration had argued that effort was minimal, and said the ATF came to the right conclusion on bump stocks after doing a more in-depth examination spurred by the Las Vegas shooting.
There were about 520,000 bump stocks in circulation when the ban went into effect in 2019, requiring people to either surrender or destroy them at a combined estimated loss of $100 million, the plaintiffs said in court documents.
Associated Press writers Mark Sherman and Farnoush Amiri in Washington, Jill Colvin in New York and Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
