Guedes v. Bureau Of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms

920 F.3d 1

Damien GUEDES, et al., Appellants

v.BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES, et al., Appellees

No. 19-5042

C/w 19-5044

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 22, 2019

Decided April 1, 2019

Erik S. Jaffe argued the cause for appellants Damien Guedes, et al. With him on the briefs were Joshua Prince and Adam Kraut.

Stephen D. Stamboulieh and Alan Alexander Beck were on the brief for appellants David Codrea, et al.

Ilya Shapiro was on the brief for amicus curiae Cato Institute in support of appellants.

Conor Shaw and Nikhel S. Sus were on the brief for amici curiae Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Former Government and Ethics Officials in support of appellants.

Steven M. Simpson was on the brief for amici curiae The New Civil Liberties Alliance and W. Clark Aposhian in support of appellants.

J. Carl Cecere, Jr. was on the brief for amicus curiae Morton Rosenberg in support of reversal.

Bradley Hinshelwood, Attorney, and Hashim M. Mooppan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the causes for appellees. With them on the brief were Matthew J. Glover, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, and Scott R. McIntosh, Michael S. Raab, and Abby C. Wright, Attorneys.

Ian Simmons, Matt Schock, and Anthony G. Beasley were on the brief for amicus curiae Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in support of appellees.

Before: Henderson, Srinivasan And Millett, Circuit Judges.

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge Henderson.

Per Curiam:

In October 2017, a lone gunman armed with bump-stock-enhanced semiautomatic weapons murdered 58 people and wounded hundreds more in a mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the wake of that tragedy, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ("Bureau") promulgated through formal notice-and-comment proceedings a rule that classifies bump-stock devices as machine guns under the National Firearms Act, 26 U.S.C. §§ 5801 – 5872. See Bump-Stock-Type Devices, 83 Fed. Reg. 66,514 (Dec. 26, 2018) ("Bump-Stock Rule"). The then-Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker initially signed the final Bump-Stock Rule, and Attorney General William Barr independently ratified it shortly after taking office. Bump-stock owners and advocates filed separate lawsuits in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the Rule from taking effect. The district court denied the plaintiffs' motions for a preliminary injunction to halt the Rule's effective date. Guedes v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives , 356 F.Supp.3d 109 (D.D.C. 2019). We affirm the denial of preliminary injunctive relief.

I

A

The National Firearms Act (i) regulates the production, dealing in, possession, transfer, import, and export of covered firearms; (ii) creates a national firearms registry; and (iii) imposes taxes on firearms importers, manufacturers, and dealers, as well as specified transfers of covered firearms. 26 U.S.C. §§ 5801 – 5861. Failure to comply with the National Firearms Act's requirements results in penalties and forfeiture, and subjects the violator to the general enforcement measures available under the internal revenue laws. Id . §§ 5871–5872.

The firearms subject to regulation and registration under the National Firearms Act include "machinegun[s]." 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a).¹ The statute defines a "machinegun" 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." 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b).

The definition also covers "the frame or receiver of any such weapon," as well as "any part" or "combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun," and "any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled" as long as those "parts are in the possession or under the control of a person." Id .

Congress expressly charged the Attorney General with the "administration and enforcement" of the National Firearms Act, 26 U.S.C. § 7801(a)(1), (a)(2)(A), and provided that the Attorney General "shall prescribe all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement of" the Act," id . § 7805; see id . § 7801(a)(2)(A).

The Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 921 et seq ., as amended by the Firearm Owners' Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 99-308, 100 Stat. 449 (1986), imposes both a regulatory licensing scheme and criminal prohibitions on specified firearms transactions. See 18 U.S.C. § 923 (licensing scheme); id . § 922 (criminal prohibitions). The Gun Control Act incorporates by reference the definition of machine gun in the National Firearms Act, 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(23). The Gun Control Act also expressly delegates administrative and rulemaking authority to the Attorney General to "prescribe only such rules and regulations as are necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter." Id . § 926(a).

The Attorney General has delegated the responsibility for administering and enforcing the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act to the Bureau. See 28 C.F.R. § 0.130(a).

B

Machine guns are generally prohibited by federal law. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). On the other hand, many firearms that require a distinct pull of the trigger to shoot each bullet are lawful. See generally id. § 922 ; 26 U.S.C. § 5845.

A "bump stock" is a device that replaces the standard stationary stock of a semiautomatic rifle—the part of the rifle that typically rests against the shooter's shoulder—with a non-stationary, sliding stock that allows the shooter to rapidly increase the rate of fire, approximating that of an automatic weapon. 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,516. A bump stock does so by channeling and directing the recoil energy from each shot "into the space created by the sliding stock (approximately 1.5 inches) in constrained linear rearward and forward paths." Id . at 66,518. In so doing, the bump stock "harnesses the firearm's recoil energy as part of a continuous back-and-forth cycle that allows the shooter to attain continuous firing" following a single pull of the trigger. Id. at 66,533. That design allows the shooter, by maintaining constant backward pressure on the trigger as well as forward pressure on the front of the gun, to fire bullets continuously and at a high rate of fire to "mimic" the performance of a fully automatic weapon. Id . at 66,516.

Exercising his regulatory authority, the Attorney General first included a bump-stock type device within the statutory definition of "machinegun" in 2006. See ATF Ruling 2006-2; see also Akins v. United States , 312 F. App'x 197, 199 (11th Cir. 2009) (summary order). In later years, some other bumpstock devices were not categorized as machine guns. 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,514.

On October 1, 2017, a shooter used multiple semiautomatic rifles equipped with bump stocks to fire several hundred rounds of ammunition into a crowd of concert attendees within a roughly ten-minute span of time. The " ‘rapid fire’ operation" of the shooter's weapons enabled by the bump stocks left 58 dead and approximately 500 wounded. 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,516.

The Las Vegas massacre prompted an immediate outcry from the public and members of Congress. See Guedes , 356 F.Supp.3d at 120, 123. In response, President Trump "direct[ed] the Department of Justice, * * * as expeditiously as possible, to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machineguns." Application of the Definition of Machinegun to "Bump Fire" Stocks and Other Similar Devices, 83 Fed. Reg. 7,949, 7,949 (Feb. 20, 2018). The Bureau then revisited the status of bump stocks and addressed the variation in its prior positions. 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,516–66,517. On March 29, 2018, then-Attorney General Sessions issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that suggested "amend[ing] the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulations to clarify that [bumpstock-type devices] are ‘machineguns’ " under 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). See Bump-Stock-Type Devices, 83 Fed. Reg. 13,442 (March 29, 2018).

The Bureau promulgated its final rule on December 26, 2018. With respect to the statutory definition of machine gun, the Bump-Stock Rule provided that the National Firearms Act's use of "the term ‘automatically’ as it modifies ‘shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot,’ " 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b), "means functioning as the result of a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that allows the firing of multiple rounds through a single function of the trigger." 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,553–66,554 (codified at 27 C.F.R. §§ 447.11, 478.11, 479.11 ). The Rule further defined "single function of the trigger," 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b), to mean "a single pull of the trigger and analogous motions." 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,553–66,554 (codified at 27 C.F.R. §§ 447.11, 478.11, 479.11 ).

In light of those definitions, the Bump-Stock Rule concluded that the statutory term " ‘machinegun’ includes a bump-stock-type device"—that is, "a device that allows a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger by harnessing the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter." 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,553–66,554 (codified at 27 C.F.R. §§ 447.11, 478.11, 479.11 ).

In adopting the Bump-Stock Rule, the Bureau relied on both the "plain meaning" of the statute and the agency's charge to implement the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act. 83 Fed. Reg. at 66,527 (citing and invoking Chevron, U.S.A. v. Natural Res. Def. Council , 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984) ). The Bureau explained that the Bump-Stock Rule both "accord[s] with the plain meaning" of the statute, and "rests on a reasonable construction of" any "ambiguous...