pressure on it or anything else? mr. fletcher: it depends on the gun. if you take the traditional m-16 gun, you a right, to fire more than one shot, you have to pul the trigger and hold it back and as long ast maintains pressure, it kpshooting. justice thomas: with the bu stop, what would i do different? mr. fleter: it is the same thing in the sense thaon motion automates back and forth movent justice thomas: what is happening with a trigger initiated firing of a machine gun? what do i have to do other than press the trigr? mr. fletcher: a traditional machine gun, take an m-16, you pull the trigger back and hold it and it keeps shooting. with a bump stop, you push forward and that both initiates and continues to fe. justice thomas: what is happening with trigger when you have the recoil. mr. fletcher: right. the primary function of the

trigger, the difference with the bump stock is it fires multiple shots automatically by automating the movement of the trigger. my friend says the trigger moves back and forth every time the sh i fed our view is those subsequent motions of the trigger are not functions of the trigger becau they are not responding to separate acts by thehooter. justice thomas: what is happening with the trigger when someone does not need a bump stock to fire weon? mr. fletcher: this is t unassisted manual firing, wher an expert can take a regular miutomatic rle and hold it loosely enough that they can do something like bump firing there is just one function of the trigger because the first push starts the sequence. the atf explained and we agree that's not automatic because there is no self-regulating mechanism. justice thomas: what's e difference? the same thing is happening with the trigg. mr. fletcher: that's why we would say with manual bump firing, there is a single

futi of the trigger, one action that initiates the firing sequence. we think it is not automat. the user is having to do all the work that the bump stock automates for you. >> i am having a little trouble with the non-trigger hand. are you holding the gun or pushing it forward and then back, forward and th back? mr. fletcher: the best place t look is the district court actual findings. what he explains is from the shooter's perspective, it is one continuous forward push. mentally you are doing nothing but pushg rward. >> continuously pushing forward? are you holding it withreure or are you movg ur hand? mr. fletcher: i distinguish between those things because what you are doing is pushing forward. if you look t videos we cite, some of them are in slow motion a when the shooter does

that, the hand is moving forward very fast, 600 times that is second. not happening because the shootecamove their hand back and forth 600im a minute. it is not happinbecause the shooter can move that fast. it'haening because when a shot is fired, the recoi dris the rifle backward and overcomes the pressure momentari. that lets the trigger reset and another shot be fired. we view it as one act and we think that's what the district court found. >> would it be right to say that e pressure on a typical machine gun, you are pulling and feeling continuabaward pressure? and on this you are feeling continual forward pressure of the opposite han mr. fletcher: exactly right. i think that's exactly he district court found. >> mr. fletcher, i watched these videos to try to figure out at this looks like. i want to ask about the mp firing. what if i designed someinand i called it a bump band.

you can do it with the, with yo bt loop. what if i design and market something i call a bump band to turn my semiutomatic in the same way, why wouldn't that be a machine gun under the statute? mrflcher: we think that is not functioning automatically because it is not a self-regulating mechanism. those devices help the shooter keep their trigger finger still but the shooter still has to manage the movement ofhe rifle, hold it so it moves backward the right distance and the right direction, then hold it so it moves forward in the right distance. what makes the bump stop different is it is built for this purpose. it has a finger ledge that holds your fingein place but also has a sliding function so when a shot is fired, the recoil pushes the fl back, lets it disengage from the trigger so the shooteroes not have to manually releaset,nd allows it to move forward just the rit distance and direction. >> may be mr. mitchell can help me understand what tha means

beusit seems it helps you do it better but it functions the same way. intuitively i am syattic to your argument and it seems le this is functioning like a machine gun would. looking at that definition, why didn't congress pass that legislation to make th covered more clearly? i think your argument depends on votion. let me give you a hypothetical and tell mif this satisfies the definition. let'imagine someone builds a fully automatic maingun. i n't try to come up with the technology for exactly how this gng to happen, but they install a tripwire on their property and leave the gun there unattended. walk away. somebody trips the wire and it begins shooting lots of rounds. does that satisfy your definition of machine gun? mr. fletcher: i think it does, cause a single act -- we have us different words, like volition -- but the ideas, is

some separate manual act required for each shot or is a single continuous act resulting in theirg of multiple shots? that's an unusual way to enact a machine gun, but a tripwires still one act by a person. justice coney barrett: but it is an unintentional act. for the bu sp to work, you still have to have your finger rit ere. what you are focusing on is the definition. the circuit lked at it from the perspective of the gun and the machinery of the gun, but you ilneed your finger there to pull back the trigger the same way you wouldf was volitional. mr. fletcher: not quite. the typical way you fire these mp stocks, acknowledged in the peti appdi you don't initiate firing by pulling backward with the trigger finger. e nger stays stationary. you initiate by pushing. the district found you could replace your trigger finger with a plastic post attached to the bump stock and it would work the same. it's true you have to keep your

finger trend if you moved it, the firing sequencwod st, t that is a pretty trivial input from the shooter. what is continuing the seque is the push forward. >>an i ask, stepping back a moment, why do these distinctions wh spect to operations matter? i read the statute to be a classification statute, that congress is dng everyone, or us, todentify certain kinds of weapons and those certain kinds of weapons are being treated in a particular way, being prohibited. i am trying understand, if it is true that the distinction infocused oneris the one between the movement of the trigger going back and forth or staying the same, i am trying to understand why that matters for the purpose of ts classification. mr. fletcher: we don't think it does because we don't think

function of the trigger means movement of the trigger. we tnkt means act of t shooter. that's how it was used at the time, including by the president the nra when he proposed the language that became t statute. ever since people have equated funcon of the trigger with pull the trigger. that makes sense if you read functionf e trigger to be an act by the shooter. justice brown jackson: i thought your answer was gng to be, we don't think it matters because of something you said in t intro. these are the kinds of weapons congress was intending to prohibit because of e mage that they cause, or something like that. i read the word function to be doing signifintork in this statute. whenunion is defined,t is really not about the operation of thehing, it's about what it can achieve, what it is being used for. i see congress as putting function in this. the function of this trigger is causehikind of damage.

800 rnd a second, or whatever. the classification of weapons we are trying to identify are those that function in thasa way. mr. fletcher: i agree witmo of that, but our argument is not congress band machine guns because they are dangerous. anything that is dangerous or shoots fast is a machine gun. weraw the interpretation from the text. justice brown jackson: how about anything in which the trigger functions e me way? by functions, i don't necessarily know that that means it has to move in the same way. it could function the same way insofar as it automatically allows for 800 rounds to be reased. mr. fletcher: exactly, the functi othe triggere's the shooter start the firing sequence, and we think the statute is aimed at we are worried about guns that let you shoot many shots without manual action. a single funcf the trigger, does the shooter have to do one thing or many things?

>> can we steba a minute? i can understand why tse should be made illegal, but we are dealing with a statute enacted in the 1930's. through many aintrations, the government took the position that these bump stocks are not machine guns. then you adoptedn interpretive role, not even legislative, saying oerse that would render betwe a quarter of a llion to a half million people federal felons, not even through a process they could challenge, bject to 10 years in federal prison, and the only wath can challenge it is if they are prosecuted, and they may wind up diosssed of all guns in the future, as wl as other civil rits, including the right to vote.

i want your reaction to that. i believe there are a number of members of congress, including senator feinstein, who said this administrative action foed all legislation that wld -- action forestalled a gestation that would have dealt with this topic directly, rather than using a 100-year-old statute in a way that many districts would not have anticiped >> there is a lot packed in there, so i do have a lot of thoughts. this court often concludes that thstutes are the runway. i think the government should do the samehi. after the las vegas shooting, i think it would have been responsie r the atf not to takenoer closer look at this prior interpretation, reflected in a handful of classification letter and to look at the problem more carefully. ving done that, i think it would have been irreonble if the atf concluded, as it did, that these devices are prohibited, for the atf not to fix it. justice gorsuch: why not do it

by a legislative rule properly? i know you noticedheomment. but an interpretive rule, you can more or less just issue. you do not even have to put it the federal registry. you do in some circumstances, but not all. you are creating a class of between a quarter of a million and a half a million people who have, in reliance on past administrations, republican and democrat, who said this does not qualify under the statute. an interpretive rule, you cannot even challenge it. mr. fletcher: we are in a poste,hey are challenging. justice gorsuch: but you said do not touch th bause that is not before us. in them to interpretive rule, u do not get a challenge. you get a criminal prosecution against you. >> i disagree with that on a number of leve. i think it would be better for those concerned about administrative power that acknowledge this is is an interpretive rule. they cannot make something a crime that was not a crime

before. is not a crime to violate the les. it has been and will always be a crime to violate a statute. e f is saying we got that wrong fo and are fixing it now. and you are rit,t would be horribly unfair to prosecute people based on reliance on the agency's pa insurance, but that is taken care of by doctrineth ensure no one h been and will be prosecuted for possessing these devices during a time the atf said it was legal. th is not a reason to shackle the atf for this court to adopt something other than the best reading of the words congress wrote. true, it was 90 years ago, but we think it used capacious language like function of the trigger, rather than pull the trigger, and added parts that could be used to convert something into a machine gun they knew americs ve a lot of ingenuity and there are a lot of ways to bui something that is a machine gun. i do not think you should hesitate from applying the broad language that congress wrote. consistent with the meaning it has always had.

>> are you representing on behalf of the government that you are not going to prosete anyone prior to 2017, anyone who wasn't a felon or disqlied for some other reason? mr. fletcher: atf madve clear that anye o turned in their bump sto or destroyed it bere march 2018 would not face prosecution. as a practical matter, the statute of limitations is five years. in a month, the limitations would be gone. we have not prosecuted people and if we ieto do it, i think they would have a good defensbad on entrapment. >>heack and forth here leads me to believe that at best there might be some ambiguity. the question is, what's the best reading? we have a whole slew of doctrineth talk about that with respect to that we shouldn't render statutes ineffective by an interpretation.

that is not the best reading, rrt? mr. fletcher: correct, exactly. justice sotomayer: we have said that as far back as 1824. mr. fletcher: in the emily, exactly. juste tomayer: i think your position is if anyone is in doubt about this interpretation, not including sothg that you basically hold in your hand and let the recoil move it back-and-forth, if that is not automatic, then it does not make any sense that this is not a maine gun. correct? mr. fletcher: that is part of our argument, absolutely. it inojust this device. we cited a number of examples of things people have done to get around t b on machine guns. excepting some interpretations my friend is offering today would legalize not just bump stocks, but those devices as well. juste tomayer: one final question. justice barrett said something about she hoped that mr. mitchell would expinhy there was a difference in the functioning between the belt and

the gun. could you gohrgh that again? i thk understand it, but -- mr. fletcher: athe atf explained, iisossible to d bump firing, meaning the rifle moves back and forth and bumps against your stationary finger. an expert can do that without any assistive device, and you can also do it by hooking ur finger into a belt loop or something to hold your finger in ple. we do not think tse things function automatically. the definition of automatically is a self-regulating mechanism. at is a bump stop, a devicpurpoe recoil energy of the gun to automate the process of releasing the trigg tmove the rifle back just the right distance in thrit direction so the trigger resetsndhen ensure the rifle moves forward just the right distance, just the rightirection. we think the cycle created is a lfegulate in process. it is possible to do e me thing with manual work and

expertise,uthat's not unusual to say somethingane done automatically if you eliminate manual movement that someone like an expert could . >> may i ask you about mens rea, for prosecuting somee now? what mens rea showing witth government have to make to coicsomeone? mr. fletcher: the relevant case is staples and the courtel you have to be aware of the facts that render your weapon -- >> so even if you are not aware of the legal prohibionyou can be convicted. mr. fletcher: that's right, but that's truef l machine guns. the distctroblem is the one created by the fact the agency was previously saying these were not machine guns >> that's going to ensnare a lot of people who are not aware of the legal prohibition. mr. fletcher: i don't think so. one of the reasons this is an interpretive rule, the reason

was in part the agency knew it had previously been saying something different. it wanted to maximize public notice. justice kavanaugh: why not require the government to also prove that the person knew what they were doing was wngl, was illegal? mr. fletcher: tha is not the understanding this court adopted in staples. we have not briefedhat question here, but to the extent that you are concerned, i not a concern unique to bump stocks. we mentioned theord reset trigger. the probm people coming up with devices that they think get close tthline but don't go over, but in fact go over the line and turn them into machin guns is not new. the problem is the atf used to say something differout these but we think that is taken care of by the doctrine of entrapment. justice kavanaugh: because people will sit down and read as they do in the evening for fun. gun owners across the country

crack it open with the fire d the dog. mr. fletcher: i take tt point. the fact this rulemakg happened has not gone unnoticed in the community of people who are interested in firearms. many people havevailed themselves of the right to chlenge our interpretation. the supreme court is hearing it. i agree, not everyone is going to find out but we uldo everything government could ssly do. >> let me ask you about the nction of the trigger. you liken it to a stroke of the key, throw up the dice, a swing of the bat. those are all things people d a function of the trigger. do people function triggers? maybe somewhere in fifth gra grammar i learned tt was an intransitive verb. people don't function things. th may pull, throw things, but they don't function things. it is a very old statu and designed f an obvious problem in the 1930's. al capone.

people with a single function of the trigger, that is the thing itself, it was moved once. that is what they wrote. maybe they should have wrien something better. e might hope they might write something better in the future, but that is the language that we are stucwi. help me. mr. fletcher: that is the langge we are stuck with but i don't think it is as narrow as you suggest. it is awkward to talk about a person functioning the trigger, but the reason congress used that word is congress new the were a lot of ways to activate the trigger and wanted to cover all of them. the reason you know it is referring to what the shooter does is that is the way it has been understood ever since. the interpretation i am giving is the se e carl frederick, president of the nra, and many other officialsseat the same time. even if you sd are going to focus just on the trigger, the function of an object is not ju some action by the object, it is the action by which i fulfills its purpose. the purpose of the trgeis to

accept input by the user. the way you know ats how everyone reacts when someone attaches ito some contraption, like the auto glove tt pulls the trigger fast, or you attach a fishing reel where you flip the switch and it spins and turns the trigger over and over. the function of the trigger wh those devices is the same because the metal levers moving back and releasing the hammer eve te. everyone, my friend included, recognizes that is not the functi othe trigger. the function of the trigger is the e's flip of the switch or push of the button becaus is the thing that allows an act by the user to initiate a firing sequence. >> i take it that the atf to find the curved lever that y pull back as the trigger. could it have defined the bump stock itself at the tgger? mr. fletcher: i'm not sure it could have. we get into this aite bit, a fferent argument may be than the one you are thinking about.

we hypothesize that if you had a machine gun that required you to pull the trigger and also hold down a button, it would still fireatically and we understand thatven though you have to do two things rather than one. what my friend said is may be the button is part of the trigger too. what we said and what i think is true, if you were going to approach the statute that you would still land in the same place because it is both the curved metal lever and the front of the rifle that the user pushes forward to initiate and mainta firing. >> thank you, counsel. justice alito? justice alito: what is the situation of people who have possessed bump stocksetween the time of the atf's new rule and the present day, or between the time of the new rule and the fifth circuit decision can they bprecuted? mr. fletcher: probablye

unless they have gotten some jucial relief. the rule has not been vacated right large, so the government has been clear ts is what we think the statute means. justicalo: isn't that sturbing? people in the fifth circuit who have been possessing firearms since the beginning of 2023, let's say they are aware of the fifth circui's decision they can be crimill procud for doing something the court of appeals that governs their territory has said is not illegal. mrfletcher: i will give a practical answer and a doctrinal aner practically i am not aware of the prosecutions being brought because we recognize there is legal uncerin. that happens all the time, circuits disagree about what a criminalaweans a someone might do somhi they think is lawful under circuit president that other circuits disagree with and this court ultimately holds is covered by the statute. justice alito: when we speak

about the function of an inanimate object, don't we normally look at what that inanimate object does? why isn't the functionf trgeto release the hammer -- let's look at the m-16, the ar-15. why isn't the futi of the trigger to release the hammer that the hammer can swing forward and strike? isn't th the most straightforward interpretation ofhi mr. fletcher: i don't think so, and even if you thought this was true, the three indications you talk about, contemporaneous usage by the president of the nran others, the application of oth tes of triggers which everyone agrees are covered but n't function by moving the hammer. one of the deviceshe fifth circuit has held -- a diri court in the fifth circuit has held is permissible --

with a forced reset trierthe atf zip tiedherigger back and the gun shot multiple bullets. the district court says under my friends interpretation, there are multiple functions of the trigger because the igr is room -- is wiggling imperceptibly each time and so it inoa machine gun. it is not reasonable to read the statute that opens it up to that asion and we are seeing evidence of that evasion in the fifthirit. justice sotomayer: when you are citing what congresspeople said or what the nra president said orhat we said in some of our decisions, because we have used a lingo trigger in describing a machine guns function, y a not using legislative history in the traditional sense. you are pointing to comm usage. mr. fletcher: exactly. we are not speculating, not saying bump stocks are machine guns because the president of the nra wanted them to be. justice sotomayer: you are saying it is a term of art.

mr. fletcher: exactly, if you published this in the new york times, we would point to it as evidence of contemporary meaning. justice sotomayer: you are poting to supreme court decisions. mr. fletcher: exactly, ts court does too. it lookso terature, all sorts of sources to understand what speakers think something means when congress use them. these are indications we are right about that. justice kagan: you have talked lot about the mechanics of these dece give us a sense of the effects of these devices. you take twoulls on a semi automatic weaponnd a conventional machine gun, how many bullets and how much time? and one of these bump stock weapons, where does that fall the spectrum between those? mr. fletcher t rate of a semi automatic weapon is not a fixed number because it dendon the weapon and the skill of the shooter.

the theoretical maximum for a ve skilled competition shooter with a sciized weapois80 bullets a minute. in practice, it is much lower for the vast majority of people. a fully automatic weapon -- justice kagan: how much lower? mr. fletcher: i think more on the order of 60, something like that. there is a lot of variation. the point is, that's the eoretical mim and it is significtl slower. traditional machine gun like issued to the american military shoots in thrae of 700 to 950 bullets a minute. there are obviously things from helipts that shoot much faster, but i think 700 to 900 ishe right benchmark. the original bump stock shot 650 rounds a minut and the devices here are represented to shoot between 400 rounds a minute, right in the range with e m-16, the m 14. we acknowledge this is not a

rate ofirstatute, it is a function statute, but the function was, are you able to fire multiple shots without multiple manual movements? the rate of fire is evidence there not multivements going on here. justice kavanaugh: you have referred a lot to the language of 1934 and thatime, but bump stocks did not exist. what are we to make of that? mr. fletch: you still apply the language that congress wrote to what didn't exist at the time. none of these workarounds, the fiinreel, auto glove, forced reset trigger, all of them are new. you can draw that congress wrote a statute, chose the word function deliberately because it did not want to focus on triggers that pull, and in 1968 it added parts that convert a normal gunnta machine gun because it recognized that people try to do things to semi automatic machineunto give them these characteristics, multiple rounds with a single manual action. justice kavanah: what is your

explanation, may be common sense or some other explanation, for why when this does become an issue, the bush, the obama administration, senator feinstein all say no, bump stocks are not covered? because if they we i don't want to use the word clear, but if your position were correct, this is a new thing obviously covered by this old statutory language, you would expect the bush, thoba administration to say it is covered. they didn't. that is reason for pause. at is your explanation? mr. fletcher: i agree with you, it is worth asking. that's why it is important to put it in context. when the atf first looks at these, the accelerator in 2002 is the bump stock th spring in the bk ere you don't have to push forward. e atf ranked a classification

letter, something relatively formal that goes to the manufacturer, saying thii't a machine gun because it doesn't have multiple functions of the trge quickltheafter, the atf corrected that error. they said it is a machine gun. the director of the atf issued a ruling that was consistent on that and the agency has held that positioev since and that's what we talked about today. it is true that informal asfication letters iue between 2007 and 2017, the atf said thanoechanical bum stocks where you have to push forward were not machine guns because they did not shoot automatically. those are informal, did not include a lot of legal analysis. no one defends the atf teretation from those letters. the atf said it doesn't he springs or nonmechanical parts so it doe't make the gun

function automatically. even my friend does not use that interpretaon there are things you can add to semi automatic weapon that make it a machine gun, and the fact that no one is yi the primary interpretation -- they d a much more careful examination and got itig. with respecto nator feinstein, the comments from a legislator trying to get giation passed a trying to demonstrate th need for tt legislation by disagreeing about the scope of current law are not a probative source of the g of the words of congress in 1934. justice jackson: can i be clear on this function point? they say that a single function of the trigger, as it appears in e stute, is directing consideration of whether the trigger is moving only once.

i think you are saying no, when it says the futi of the igger, it's not how the trigger operates. thfunction of the trigger is what it achieves. and the function you are saying is by sing operation, meaning sing mement of the pso you can achieve firing multipl shots without multiple manual movements, that covers the function of the trigger. is that atou are saying? mr. fletcher: exactly. the thing that makes this clearest is e pothetical on page 30. imaginsoone builds a black box with a butn andhe shooter pushes the button and by the -- and bullets come out at a hi re. that is a machine gun. in my friend's view, if after the shooter presses the button, the button keeps moving up and down on it own, he says that's not a machine g because the trigger is functioning each time

a shot is fired. we don't think that is plausible. justice jackson: we will ask him about that. euros accounts for automatically more than one shot being in definition. exactly.cher:. . chief justiceoberts: thank you, counsel. mr. mitchell? mr. mitchell: the statutory definition of che gun extends only to weapons that fire more than one shot automatically by a single futi of the trigger. mr. cargill bump stocks found -- fall outside that for one fition. it can fire only one shot per function of the trigger cae the trigger must reset after every shot and function ai before another shot can be fired. th trigger is the device that initias e firing of the weapon, and the fction of the trigger is what the firing vice musto to cause the

trigger to fire. the phrase function of the triggecarefer only to the trigger's function. it has nothing to do with the shooter or whathshooter does to the trigg bause the shtedoes not have a function. thstute is concerned only with what the trigger does and whethea ngle function of that trigger produces more than one shot. second, a bump stock equipped rifle does not and cno fire more than one shot automatically aingle function of the trigger. because the shooter, in addition to causing the trigger to function, must also undertake additional manual actions to ensure a successful round of mp firing. everything authe bump firing process is manual. er is no automating device, such as a spring or motor, in any of mr. cagill's nonmechanical bum stocks. the process dependenrely on human effort. they must thrust it forward with

e non-shooting hand while simultaneously maintaining backward pressure on the weapon with his shooting hand. none of them are automated. the solicitor general has yet a lot o-- to identify any mpent of mr. carpegill's devices that automatically performs any task necessary for gum firing. we ask the court to affirm on that ground. bind the government's argument is the sense that this statute was initially enacted because of what some of th individuals did during prohibition. d there was significant damag from machine guns, carnage, pele dying, etc. behind this is the notion that the mp stock ds e exact same thing.

with that background, why shouldn't we look at a broader definition of function, the one suggested by the government, as opposed to just the narrow function that you suggest? mr. mitchell: the problem wh the government's argument is that the phrase sileunction of the trigger can only be cotrd grammatically to focus on the trigger's fction and not what the shooter doetohe trigger. for one thing, there cannot be a subject of function, because a shooter esot function a trigger. on arigger can have a function and not a shooter. e licitor general is trying to replaceheord function in the statute with theorpull, and if the statute had said a single pull of the trigger, that phrase would clearly refer to an act taken by the shooter because e trigger cannot pull itself. if the court igog to

interpret the statute bad what it say rather than the purpos othe overarching alof what the 1934 legislature might have been, there is no way it can accept the government's construction of the statute because changing the enacted words. >> can i give you a way? the statute says function, as we have all identified. as far as i can tell, the common usage of t wd functio is not its operational si. it inothe mechanics of the thing. it is what it achieves, what it is being used for. function is defined as the action for which a person or thing is spefilly fitted or used. the actor operation expected of e person or thing. if we take that definition, it ems to me tt rough its use of the word function, congress was trying to capture a class of weapons in which a trigger is used once to achieve a certain result.

which says in the statute, automatic firing mantis. so weapons with bump stocks have trgers that function in the same way through a sglpull of the trigger or touch of the trigger, you achieve the same result of automatic fire of the weapon. why ishainconsistent with grammar or the way the statute reads? mr. mitchell: the premi othe question is not true. a single discharge of t trigger produces only one shot. it doesotroduce a round of automatic fire. the only way you get repead ots with a bump stock equipped riflisor the shooter himself to continually undertake manual action by continuously thrusting the rifle forward with his non-shooting hand. justice jackson: but that is not the trigger. he has only touched trigger once. mr. mitchell: he touches the trigger every single time. justice jackson: but the machine is moving. let me ask you a question.

i understood this to be a classification statute in the sense that congress is trying to classify certain wpo. if you are right, i want to understand why that matters. why does it matter, for the purpose of this statute, that we have backwards pressure in the ordinary case of a machine gun and forward pressureer you are saying there is a distinction being drawn. bump stocks don't fit into this category because of this distinction and i don't understand why congress wod have prohibited one but not the other. . tchell: it matters because the statute turns on whether the bump stock equipd fle will fire more than one shot automatically. justice jackson: rightin context, the statute is classifying certain weapons r prohibition. for it to make sense, we have to understand why this tery of weapons are ones that congress wants to prohibit. you are suggesting congress is prohibiting through this

classification weapons in which we hold backwards and automatic fire happens. but we push it forward and automatic fire happens, congress says no. mr. mitchell: there is no automatic fire. justice jackson: sorry, 800 bullets -- the conversation with justice kagan suggested that through a bump stock, you can achieve the same kind of results, in terms of the amount of bullets that are being ejected. mr. mitchell: that is true, it has a high rate of fire, but it is n aomatic. justice jackson: right, but what i am suggesting is the category of probion is about the high rate ofi as opposed to the movement of the trigger. if you are right that it's about the movement of the trigger, i am asking why. why would congress want t prohibit certain things based on whether the trigger is moving as opposed to certain this at can achie ts lethal spray of bullets? mr. mitchell:ecse the statute was written in934, 100

years before we had bump sck congress drafted the statute to capture the type of weaponry it wanted to prohn 1934. >> you said several times in your brief, yo ierpretation captures a fair number of weapons that nodhad on their radar in 1934. soet me ask you about that and where the line is. it is a gun fires multle shots at the push of a button or the fl of a switch and keeps firing -- mr. mitchell: clearly that is a machingu justice kagan: ok. if a gun does the same thing, except now it is the pusofwo buttons? mr. mitchell:

the difference is you do not need to hold the bton to make

the weapon fire. >> if there is a conceivable possibility of using the bump stock devices in a way that does t take advantage of what the devices do and are able to do, the fact that there is that conceivable poibity is what you are rti your entire argument upon. >> the trigger is the device that initiate firing the weapon thing. a bump stock does not change or alter the trigger the other hypothetical devices are changing the triggering device by either pushing two buttons insteadf one. the trigger is still in the situation the lever and the solicitor general has never tested -- ted that. >> this conversation itotally confusing because i thought your argument depended on what --

that t function of the trigger wt the trigger does mechanically inside the weapon. and therefore whether you have one trigger or threeor two or t0 buons, it doesn't matter. what matters is what the trigger or triggers do inside the gun. back in the day when itas possible to fire the standard military issue rifle, m-16 fro the 1970's, on automat, my understanding is you can't even do that anymore. all you can fire at most is a but three shots. there are two tts on the all-time m-16. no, er are three. you have to flip it over from semi automatic to automatic. that is one button. the other butt ithe polling of the trigger. do i misunderstand your

gument? mr. mitchell: not at allth function of the trigger is what the trigger doeso use the weapon to fire. to determine that, we need to determine what the trigger i there will be certain typesf devices, like this motorized trigger device, where the trigger actual i changed because you are no longer pulling the curved metal lev, instead you are flipping some switch. >> now i am lost. the trigger is not doing anything, it is the person doing something. it is the person choosing on an m-16 whether they are going to ephe switch on semi automatic or put the switch on automaticnd turn the f-16 into a machine gun. on a machine gun, it is not the trigger that does this, it is the pressure of the shooter is using to hold the trigger down that permits it to keep going. mrmitchell: that's what causes

the trigger to function. justice sotomayer: that's what the government is saying, which is you are not looking at what th trigger is doing, you are looking at what t soter is doing. is he using a force, keeping the trigr dow oholding the bump stocknd letting it shoot back and forth in an automatic recoil? those are not things that change the automatic nature of the firi. mr. mitchell: it still has nothing to do with what the ooter does. the question is what does the trigger do if it functions? the trigger allows more than onsh to fire per function of the trigger, what is a function of the trigger? justice sotomayer: the trigger you are saying can be a button, so why can't it be the bump stock forcing the recoil motion to go back and forth? mr. mitchell:se the bump stock does not fire a weapon, just a case in which the weapon fires back and forth. >> can you define the bump stock

as a trigger, could they have? mr. mitcll no, because the bump stock is neither necessary nor sufficient for firing. it is the curver that causes the weapon to fire. >> it seems to me the spirit of so of the questions you are tting are in the nature of the circumvention principal. ok, maybe in 1934, function of the trigge meant the firing, the essential thing that caes a weapon to fire. but e gh rate of fire that is achievable through bump stocks is effectively the equivalent, and we should take cognizance of that. your thoughts? mr. mitchell: that is not what the statute says. it has nothing to do with the rate of fire. >> the statute does not say a lot of things that you agreed are prohibited und the statute. the statute does not thinkbo buttons and switches. i have to think that if i give

you a different hypo that said it was voice activated, you would have to say yes, that is a machine gun too. the statute does not think about that. i gueswh justice gorsuch is sang is that you in arguing this case have had to do something very sensible, because otherwise it would seem -- this statute is loaded with anti-ccuention devices. the entire way ts statute is written suggests congress is very aware there could be small adjustments of a weapon tt could get around what congress meant to prohibit. in all kinds of ws, you are accepting of that and saying yes, you can circumvent it b that. you can circumvent it with nonconventional triggers, you can circumvent it by all these hypotheticals i have been giving. but you can't circumvent it

through this oneechanism. mr. mitchell: i'm not saying that you can circumvent the statute, we are just interpreting the word trigger, which appears in the stury text. when youreealing with a motorized trigger device, that's an easy case because that has chged the trigger from a curved metal lever,ecause the shooter is no longer using that to fire. instead there is a switch that is now triggering the device because that is the function, turning on the switch, that causes automatic fire to occur because there is a moroving the curved metal lever back and forth. that is united states against camp. this is an easy caausehe bump stock does not change the trigger in any way. justice sotomayer: when you talk about modification pieces, i do not understand your argument. i had taken the united states to always tak position -- i had a case about this when i was a district court judge -- where

the question was these flat metal pieces that were mailed internationa the defen , where they machine guns? we were all confused because w had this notion of what a machine s, and the government argued this metal piece was a machine gun and brought in experts that said, under this staanything that could be used to convert a regularly operating semi automatic weapon into one that rapidfire disqualifies. . mitchell: i'm sorry, rapidfire is not under the statute. it is not whether it fires rapidly, it's whether it fires more than one shot automatically by a single funconf the trigger. justice jackson: i'm sorry. they said it couldbuwhat we focused on was not whether that metal pcehanged the way the trigger operated ybe you are saying that's wrong, but what i am focused on is your argumentee to rest on the assumption thathe function of the trigger is what

e trigger does inside the gun. mr. mitchell: that is correct. justice jackn: why is it irration, ong,tc., to think t function of the trigger as what it does to cause the weapon to automatically fire more than one shot? that's what we mean by function of the trigger, which is in the statute, automatically more than one sho ate are saying is if one operation causes the trigger -- causes the function of the trigger to make the weapon automatill fire more tn e shot, i don't understand why you're reading is efable to that. wendy, understanding of a machine gun is that it is doing this sort of thing at the end of the day. mr. mitchell: it's because the trigger on the bumstk equipped rifle does not cause the rifle to automatically fe more than one shot. you still have to have manual action by the shooter.

in respoe every shot, the shooter has toonnue to thru t stock forward. justice jackson: tt a distinction. my other question then comes in. why does that distinction matter from congress's perspective in terms of it writing a statute that it was trying to prohit that? if you are right that that's the relevant distinction, i guess i ne aeason why there i something inherently so much worse by suation in which you push it forward rather than t it bk, that we can reonly say that was a particular category congress wanted to prohibit. that's what i am missing. it doesn't make sense to me we are going to identify guns on that purpose and say these are the ones that are prohibited when others that achieve the me results are not. mr. mitchell: because the statute was written in 1934 and congress was not thinking about bump stocks. >> you have said several times

that you thrust wi yr non-trigger hand tfi the gun forward. i derstand your friend on the other side to focus ont more as maintaining pressure. which is it? do you hold it harder at certain points than others? orreou actually moving it with thrusting? mr. mitchell:efinitely moving your hand back and forth, and mr. fletcher agreed on that poin where the disagreement comes is mr. fletcher seems to characterizehection of the non-shooting hand as something where you are applying constant prsu in a certain direction, t the recoil is strong enough to overcome that pressure from the non-shoong hand and thereby move the weapon backward despite the pressure from the non-shooting han >> tell me if i am wrong, but that means the way the soter perceives it is by imposing constant forward pressure. not the

>> the shooter can do both. it takes a lot of practice to master the art obu shooting . no person is strong enough to push forward. if they rebump firing wouldn't happen. for successful bump firing to occur, there needs to be that the back and forth motion. there's reco ery time the rifle fires. there's still pressure from the left hand or the right hand if you're aefhanded shooter, there's still going to be pressure that the nonshooting hand. buthshooter can decide how much he wants to calibrate the pressuren sponse to the repeated recoils he's getting. it doesn't have to beheame amount of pressure each time. the shooter just h tmake sure that the hand is moving back and forth, because that's the only way you can have successful bump firing. to g bk to your question -- >> the shooter doesn't make sure thhand is moving back and forth. that's the way the reil operates. the shooter makes sure he's pushing forward, and then the recoil operates , in fact, even though the shooter is not

experiencing this, is not experiencing this. the shooter is not moving his ha back and forward. >> that's probably rig. unless the shooter is so strong that he has to ease off a litt bit to make sure he doesn't overcome the recoil. to my knowledge, i don't think there's anybody strongnoh to keep pushing and forcing it past the recoil energy. mr. chief justice, i don't think the answeratrs in the end. even if we accept the characterization that it's cota pressure with the same amount of force, continuously over a sustained, period of meit's still a manual action. the shooter is the one who is pushing. it's human effort, human exertion, nothing autotiat all about this process. he says this harnesses the recoil energy t weapon. that is false. with the accelerorhere is harnessing, because it has a spring. so there will be certain bump firing devices where you can

accute say that the bump stock harnesses the recoil energy of the weapon, not so th respect to a nonmechanical bump stock. the weapon recoils, nothing is harnessed with respect to the recoil energy, and it is shooter with the nonshooting hand continue to thrust the weapon forward. >> i disagree ou about automatically. can you win solely on function of a trigger? >> absolutely. >> why? >> becsehe single function of the trigger, the solicitor general has to win on both armes. to prevail we only need to win on one of the two. we could win on automaticly standing alone. we could win on sing fction of the trigger. or we could win on both. we respectfully ask the court to rule on both. there's a split on each of the two issues within the question. >> speaking of automatical, can you address the question i asked mr. fletcher about a band bump firing. he said it was different. how do you see them futiing differently? >> ty're indistinguishable. when it comes to aomatically. everyone involved with the b that you suggested and also everything offered with the nonmechanical bump stock, it's a manual actn dertaken by the

shooter. there is no automating device. mr. fletcher has yet to identify an device in the nonmechanal bump stock that automates any task thaisuccessful for successful bump stocking, it is being ney the shooter. there is the recoil after the shot gs red, and the shooter, with his own hand, with his own force, exert pressure forward, consistently to make sure the trigger bumps into his finger, this is all manual, nothing automatiabt it. nothing at all. >> can i ask you a variation of the hypothetical, a black box scenario the government puts forward in there? you might be familiar with it. it's in the brief. they say we have two boxes, each of which continuously fires bullets after the operator prses and releases a button. if i hear yocoectly, or maybe you can just tell me, box one, thepetor pushes the button, and the bullets come out automatically.

box two, the operator holds his finger slightly above e x, and there's something, you know, under the box that pushes the box up into his fier so the finr touching the trigger like a million times, becausinrder for it to operate, the box is going like sopushing up. one is machine gun, one isot same rate of velocity of ble come out, that's your view? >> the answer depends on what is the trge in the united states against camp, motorized trigger devices are machine guns, and the tiale of that case be extended to this hypothetica i think the way to thi o this, your honor, is there are going to be easy cases in each of the extremes d rder cases in the middle. the easy case is united states against ca, cause that is a situation where the trigger was changed. it no longer is the curve metal. >> right, and your view isha makes it easy or hard is not the thought of mind that, jeez, what makes it easy or hard is

distinguishing those two in the real world, like in terms of what is actulyappening. you think what makes it easy or hard is just identifying whether the finger is moving because the box is moving or because the person is pushing it down. >> what makes it hard is whether it's changed thnare of the trigger in some way. clearly thatapned in camp. this situation with mr. cargill, there's not even argument the trigger has been dangered. e doj at no point in this argument has argued bump stocks change the nurof the trigger or change the trippinger at all. there will be rd cases in the middle, such as the forced reset triggers and some of the hypotheticals that we're discussing, the d.c. circuit's opinion, where there may be a question as wt exactly the trigger is, and then how does that tgg function. so, again, going back to camp, wh tre's a flip of a switch that turns on a motor and that motor then forces the cue metal lever back and forth, that's automatic fire. that's a mache n, because we now have a new trigger, the switch. it's no lgethe curve metal lever.

so can that passional be extended to mef the hypotheticals where we talk about black boxes and oscillatinbuons? what is the trigger in is it the button, the motor that's moving the button up and down? it'arguable either way. we don't think the court should resoat, but for to us take a position on the question, it's ing to depend on whether you can extend the holding o camp to these new situations. the accelerator is a good example to think about. in 2006, when a.t.f. changed the position on the accelerator, they initial aroved that device in 2002. 2006, it changed itsin if you look at the classification letter, their argument rests oanrgument similar to what mr. fletcher is making today. they cite the legislative history fromarfrederick and say function of the trigger means pull of the igr. that is not going to work if the accelerar character islessed as a machine begun. at might work is if there's an argument to extend the united states against camp. does that spring the accelerator and change the nature of the trigger in that'thquestion that needs to be addressed. if a.t.f. wants to contie characterize the accelerator as a machine gun, it's going to need to come up with a much better argument than what it offers in 2006. we're not closing the door on that possibility, but we think the rationale th a.f. has used is just as faulty for banning nonmechanical bump stocks. >> thank youcosel. justice thomas? juste thomas: mr. mitchell, i

inyou would agree that the bump stock accelerates the rate ofire. mr. mitchell: absolutely. why wouldn't you then take th further step of saying it changes the nature of the trigger in doing that? >> because the tgg still has to reset after every single shot. i's not accelerating by changing the trigger, it's accelerating the rate of fire -- >> that's t really what -- >> i'm sorry. >> why wouldn't you sath you have enhanced the triggering mechanm using the bump stock? >> because it's not changing t triggering mechanism at all. it'simple making it easier for the shooter to bump that trigger peedly. the nature of the triggering meanism remains exactly the same. what'gog on inside the gun after the trigger got bumped is no different than what it would be if it were a semiautomati rifle without the bump stock. that's why the governmenta't win on this single function of the trigger. >> i think the difference is that the m be some who believe, when you look at it, the nature of e ring has changed as a result of the bump stock. so if that's changed, why don't you simply then look backwards and say that the nurof the firing mechanism has changed? thus the nature of the trigger has changed. >> what changed is the rate of fire, ani's still one shot per function of the trigger.

even though shots are coming out of the barrea t faster than they were before, the question is, how many funio are the trigger do we have for each of the shot and the answer is one. if you divide thnuer of shots that are fired from a bump stock-equipped rifle by the number of timethtrigger has to function to produce that shot, the answer will always be one. it wl main that way because nothing in the triggering mechanism has changed. >> justice alito? >> can you imagine a legislator thinking we should b mhine guns, but we should not ban bump stocks? is there any reason why a legislator might reach that judgment? >> i think there is. bump stocks can help people who ha disabilities, who have problems with finger dexterity, people who have arthritis in their fingers. there could be a valid reason for preserving legality of these devices as a matter of policy, even while similar weapons, such as the fully aomic machine guns are being banned. whether congress ultimately makes that judgment, wwod have to wait and find out

whether they would decide it along those ways. but there are respectable arguments for why these remain legal as a matter of policy. >> why would anybody -- i'm sorry. >> in the field of statutory interpretation, justice scalia was the churchf the holy trinity, a case where he thought that the literal language of the statute hatoontrol even though it's pretty hard to think that congress actually meant that to apply in certain tuations. as youeehis case, this is another church of the holy trinity case. >> i would say it's quite in sechf the holy trinity, one of the argument the government is making are certainly in the spirit of holy trinity, to borrow a phase that was used from the holy trinity n. i don't think a textuality judge caaccept the rationale this being offered by the u.s. governme, d they are in their brief making purpose of this argument along the lines of what we saw in church of the holy trinity. >> thank you. >> justice sotomayor?

>> why would even a personit arthritis, why would congress think they needed to shoot 400 to 700 or 800 rounds of ammunition under any circumstance? >> you can't -- >> if you don't let a person without arthritis do that, why would you permit a person with arthritis to do it? >> they don't shoot 400 to 700 rounds, because the magazine only goes up to 50 so you're still going to have to change the magazine after every round. we allow large capacity magazines up to 50. and also, there are many shootershoan pull the trigger of a semiautomatic rifle very, very quickly, who can fire rates that approach fully automatic weapons. so -- >> counsel, you spoke about legislative history, and i think you're trying to bat away all of the statements during the legislative process that cle

functions of the trierthe single pull of t tgger, but it is not clsilegislative history. it's how people understood a term at the time. that's not legislative history. >> well, it's still legislative history. they're just using it for a purpose. >>ell, justice thomas said in mcdonald versus city of ico that it's perfecy ceptable to do thati's being shown how lawmakers use the particular te that's different than what they intended. >> if we're using legislative history to determine the meaning of the statute, which is how i detand your honor's interpretation, and i think that'homr. fletcher is stating that. >> it's not just that, 've got statements in the house, from legislators in the hou, have statements from legislators in the sat

all of them consistently translate "function of the trigger" to mean a single pull of therier. >> and they're all wrong, because the statute also w written to encpa weapons that have push triggers rather than pull triggers. the solicitor general acknowledges this point in her opening brief. >> what it suggests to me is that contry what you're saying, they never understood this to be how the trigger nctions, but how the shooter functions. >> i think we should draw the exact oose inference. provesownreliable legislative history is as a tool to deserve what the statute -- >> we're going to disagree. >> it's because, justice sotomayor, the phrase pull of the trigger can't be equated with function of the trigg, and even the solicitor general acknowledges that. they say in their brief the statute needs to be read in a way that encompasses fully automatic weapons that have push triggers rather than pull triggers.

>> and you agree. >> i agree that ncon -- >> but the only way you can ge there is by looking at what the shooter is doing >> wpon can go off without a shooter. a weapon can fall on thelo and go off accidentally with a discharge, the tgg has functioned, even though the shtehasn't pushed it. what matters under the statute is what the trigger does. and all these examples that we e the solicitor general's brief, when they are taking transitive verbshethey say , swing of the bat or stroke of the key or roll of the dice, all of those are verbs that are capable of taking an object. so when you see inof the bat, there's an unnamed actor in that senncthat is the subject of the verb swing. the bat can't swinitlf. it is an inanimate object. the function of the trigger is enrely different. function cannot take an object grammatically. it has to be the subject of functionality, can't being the objection. >> justice kagan? >> those fr rds are not the

entire statute, function of the trigger. it is by the function of the trigger. what is the by? it is shooting presumably a , shooter is there, but, y know, maybe it happened spontaneousl b shooting more than one shot by a single function of the trigger, that's the releva lguage, right? shooting more than one shot by the ng function of the trigger. and then there's also the automatic. i don't want to ignore that. but it seems as if you look at the entire phrase,hathat means is that congress had, wanted to denkhe number of shots that were coming out of a barrel, more than one shot, wanted to delink that from a discrete human actio ani would think, you know, it might be, you pull the trigg, it might be you push the trigger, it might be you switch on the trigger, it might b voice activate the trigger.

e's a human action and it produces a torrent of bullets. and that's exactly what's happening here. you push the bump stock. now you're saying maybe they didn't defi t bump stock as the trigger, but it functions in precisely the same way. and a torrent of bullets comes out, and this is in th heartland of what they were concerned ou which is anything that takes just a little human action to produce more thaonshot is what they were getting at. >> that's just not t w they wrote the statute. if that's what they were getting at, they should haveraed it better than what they did. it dependsn ether more than one shot is coming out by a single function t trigger. i agree with your honor. the rate ofi of a bump stock equipped rifle approaches the ratef re of a fully automatic weapon, and there ma beood policy reasons to treat these as identical. there may also be good policy reasons to distinguish them. that's the desi for congress to make. it's certainly not a decision

for a court oror administrative agency that's charged with implementing instructions of congress. >> i'll tell you, i view myself as gd textualist. i think that's the way we should ink about statutes. it's by reading them. but textualism is t inconsistent with common sense. at some pot u have to apply a little bit of common sense to the way you read a statute and undeta that what this stute comprehends is a weapon that fires a multitude of shots with a single human action. whether it's continuous pressure on a conventional machine gun, holding the trigger, or a continuous pressure on one of these devices on the barrel. i can't understand how anybody could think that those two things should be treat differently. >> well, they're treated differently beusthe statute

turns on a single function of the trigger. and e oblem for the government is they're not ae to change the nature of the trger that currently exists on a semiautomatic rifle simp b adding a bump stock, which is nothing more than a casing that allows the rifle to slide back d rth. the trigger is exactly the same as what it was before. and the function of the trigger is exactly theamas what it was before. think of the semiautomat rle where someone has a quick trigger finger that could have a high rate of fire, but it's stl e shot per function of the trigger. that's e oblem here the government still is not able to overcome. every time that trigger functions inde bump stock equipped rifle, there is one shot and onlonshot that gets fired. even though there may be rapid consecutively. occur >> thank you. >> thank you. justice gorsuch and kavanaugh? >>sponse a lot of the questions you made the point that bump stocks were not around in 1934, and that's a good point for you.

but what evidence is there, if an tt as of 1934 the ordinary understanding of the phrase functioofhe trigger referred to the mechanics of the gun rather than the shooter's motion? >> well, it had to, and the evidence tt can see is the evidence the solicitor general points out abo t fact that there were push triggers in extee at that time. and that function of the trigger, even thoughouan find legislative history where there seems to be peleho think function of the trigger means the same thing as pull of the trigger, those phrases cannot be equated for that very reason. >> i guess i am asking the opposite. is there any evidence that someone was drawing that distinction? >> between push and pull? >> no, the distinction between the function of the trigger ant something different. >> i'm not aware of that in legislative history. >> are you aware of that anywhere in communication at the time? >> not at the time, nobeuse the communication, as we can see from the record, was rather sloppy. people were using pull of the trigger as a phrase they thought was synonymous with function of the trge and that's

obviously not the case. >> ok, so no one wasayg, oh, function of the trigger, that's dierent phrase than pull or push, and therefore, it mean something different. are you aware of anyone who said that anywhere in america at the time? >> i'm not awarofhat, but i don't find that concerning, because -- >> well, as textualist, you have to think about the phrase, not just each word in the phrase. >> that's right. when you look at the phrase function of the trigger, as i s saying earlier, and justice gorsuch made this earlier, function of the trigger means trigger, we talked about this before, trigger has to be the subject of function, it can't being the object. >> right, so the follow-on question is just focus on the phrase, d'm just making the point i don't think anyone said this at the time, which doesn't defe yr argument. i'm not suggesting it defeat yo argument, but it would help your argument if people were drawing that distincti. >> it certainly would help. but the phrase, given the way it's written right now, and the impossibility textually of trying to make the trigger into

an objt the verb -- >> and no one was drawing the distinction, why wldongress have drawn that distinction? yo b point, we got to look at 1934, we got to look at wt congress wrote, why would congress have drawn that distinction in 1934? >> because they wanted to get the fully autotiweapons who had the push triggers. and if you use pull of the trigger you are not going to get those devices. so they had to say function of e trigger to own expos those forms of weaponry, as long as the conventional cover push and pull? >> how should it be defined, in your view, to cover bump stocks? in other words, tomorrow congress said, mr. mitchell, how shou we write the statute to cover bump stocks since function of t tgger in your view doesn't do it? >> i'd have to ask them what else do you want to encompass besides bump stocks? >> just bump stocks. give me a sentence that you thk would cover bump stocks. >> i would provide a statutory definition of bump stos at

tracks as closely as psie to nonmechanical devices that mr. cargill has. >> it's not a great statutory language. you got anything better than that? [laughter] >> i think you can say any device, and this may be a little tobrd, but you can say any device that is used to celerate the rate of fire from a semiautomatic weapon, that would probably capture bump stocks. it might capture some other things, but otr ings would be similar enough to bump stocks that congress would want to ban them as well. >> back in the state statute, they did that at the time, ok. last question, you haven'made a second amendment or constitutional voidance argument. in youvi are bump stocks covered by the second enent, protected by the second amendment? >> we didn't argue that because courts are generally loathe decide constitutional questions when there's an easy statutory offering. >> you did not throw it in as constitutional buoyancy. i imaginth was a considered choice. i'm rious what was behind

that. >> there's nothing that prent this court from invoking the constitution canon on e cond amendment issue, because there is a queioat least whether this falls within the dangerous and unusual aps cover out. -- carveut we don't have a position because we didn't brief it, and also dangerous is vague enough that it's just not clear to us what the answer would be. >> thank you. >> justice jackson? >> i guess i'm still not clear as to why you believe there's only one meaning of function of the trigger inhicontext. why couldn't we read the word function of the trigger in this statute to mean the function of the trigger is to start a chemical reaction th lds to the expulsion of a projectile? if i read function of the trigger in that way, i think i comeuto a different result than you are positing. help me understand why that couldn't beheunction of the trigger. in other words, i know,'m

sorry, confusing question. you seem to sing that the function of the trigger and the only one that core cared about that matters for the way this statute reads is the movement of the trigger. >> no, not necessarilyhe movement. >> ok, tell me. >> it's what the trigg ds to cause the weapon to fire. >> ok. what the trigger does. >> it is more than just the movement. >> i'm saying what thtrger does, both in this case, in a bump stock case, and in a machingucase, is to start a chemical reaction that leads to thexpulsion of a projectile. >> there are other devices in the firearm that do thatart. what the trigger does -- >> no, but it'li causation, right? it's like standing on the sca. the triggerthfunction of it, one could say is to stt is chemical reaction. some weapons might do wh a button. some might do it wita ll . do some weapons might do it by moving back and forth quickly, by the mechacsf the gun

operating in a certain way. others might do it by the meanics of the gun operating in a different way. but i could say that the function is to begin the chemicaleaion that results in the expulsion of this weapon, and that happe bh in the bump stock situation and in this situation, so i don't understa why this statute couldn't be read as the way the government is. >> even if you read it that way, i don't see how that wins the case for the government. >> why not? >> because only one shot is being fired per function. >> no, sine nction. if i read the -- there's only a sing tng that happens. >> right. >> to begin the chemical reaction that expels the bullet. >> that is one bullet, one shot. >> but then we go into the other part of the statut automatically multiple shots. you can't forget the rest of the statute. that was justice kagan's point. when we t em together, the work of the function of the igr, i think, could be to start the chemical reaction that then results in the totic,

more than one shot coming out of the gun. why can't i interpret it that way? >> if that were actually happening, then i think you would have a plausible argument for is is a machine gun. that's not the way itor. >> that's because you're reting the statute to say it has to be about the mechanics. >> no. >> what i'm trying to understand is how that's consistent with congress putting modific in here. >> i'm just saying -- >> can i just change a little bit? if you're right that congress cared about y the mechanisti operation, then i'm confused as to why this statute also tbout modifications. because that suggests that ss was not hung up on exactly how this gun operates. we're sweeping inllinds of things, things that originally weren't designed to work this waat all, right? we're allowing for machine guns to ilu things that can modify something that didn' erate this way at all into a, into the kind of thinghe a

chemical reaction kicks if off, and it automatical fes more than one shot. if that is what i am thinking about, then i guess i don't understand your hangup over how this operates mechanistically. >> the test under the statute is whetheitan be readily restored to fire autatally more than one shot by a single functionf e trigger. it's not whether it can be modified to fireutatically more than one funds of the trigger. >> all right, i'll look that up. >> just to get back to your earlr estion, it's factually incorrect to say that a function ofhe trigger automatically starts a chain reaction that propels multiple bullets from the gun. a function of the trigger fires one shot, thenhehooter must take additional manual action. >> i understand that's your argument, thank you. >> thank you, counsel. a rebuttal, mr. fletcher? >> thank you, mr. chief justice. i take from my friend's answers today he does noseously dispute that a rifle with a bump stock does basically the same thing as aacne gun and is basically just as dangerous as a machine gun.

but his argument is the words th congress wrote in 1934 just don't cover it becauseheord single function of a tgg unambiguously refers to the movement or the mechanics of the igger without regard to the action of the shooter. we are not mina holy trinity argument. if that is what the words meant, then we would be stuck wh e words. we are not asking toouepart from the plain language. we're ainyou to give it its natural meaning. to understand y e statute can be and should be read our way, it's worth thinking about how many people you haveo disagree with in order to adopt my friend's reading. on the grammar, page 56-a of t petition appendix explains why it's perfectly natural to read function of the trigger rer to what the shoor es to the igger not to what the trigger , does by itself. justice kavanaugh, you asked about contemporaneous usage. the's a lot of contemporary usage of people using the term pull of the trigger to be synyus with function of the trigger. that makesen if we're talking about what the shooter do. it's by pulling on th.

but i think my friend conceded that usage is all inconsistent with his reading, and as you pointed out, there is no evidence that anyone at the time or ever since until the development of devices like these ever thought that function of the trigger meant mechanical movement independent of any action by the shooter. it's also worth emphazi that even if you looked at what the trigger does by itself, athe trigger does is accepts some input by the shooter justice kagan, you asked a voice-activatetrger. you could soave one by a swipe screen. theyo't have any moving parts. on our understanding, we say is there an act of the shooter that initiatethfiring sequence? on my friend's understandg, have no idea how he would deal with a firearm that had a trigger that d n have moving parts. we've ao lked some about automatically. i ta mfriend's point to be that he thinks because there' some continued manual input, the puing forward, it can't be automatic. but automatic just mea bway of a self-regulating mechanism

. it doesn'teait eliminates some of movement contrary to what my friend said, a bump stock does eliminate manual action thshter has to take. with a semiautomatic weapon, you have to pu a release the trigger with each hot. with aumstock, the bump stock allows the recoil from each shot to automatically ph the rifle back, disengaging the trigger, eliminating t nd for the shooter to release, and then it changes the forward and backward movement in exactly the right way toll a continuous firing cycle to continue. now, i think it's also telling thatomof the gymnastics with respect that my friend has to do inrder to deal with all of the other hypothetical and actl devices that have been out there, because i thi h recognizes that the accelerator, the electric reset assist, the fishing reel and camp, all of the workarounds he be covered by the statute, becae congress wouldn't enact something to such easy evasion. the only way he can say they are

vered is by engaging in various understandings of what the trgeis. i think for the accelerator, he suggested maybe the trigger is the spring in the back of e rifle rather than the lever that the shooter actually pulls to start the firing sequence. on t bck box hypothetical, i'm still not sure what his answer is, but i think it must be that the button is the trigger the first time it move up and down, but then it stops beg the trigger when it keeps moving up and down afterrd i think those are all very implausible interpretis that this court should not give to a statute if there's another reing available, and our view is there is another reading available. in short, tnk congress in 1934 wrote this statute t st for the kinds of devices that extethen, but for all kinds of devices that ulbe created in the future that would do the same thing. it enaednd strength into these laws because it did not want members of the public or law enforcemenofcers to face the danger from weapons that let a shooter spray many bullets by making a single act. that's exactly what bump stock do. as the las vegas shooting vividly illustrated. we think this court should give

the words congress wrote their full natural meaning and hold the ban on bump stocks. thank you. >> all this week we are showing recent supreme court cases that the court is expected to rule on and we talk to reporters. it begins at 9:30 on c-span. on ty will be a second amendment case on whethereople on domestic violence protective orders can legally own firearms. watch the case and oth recent oral arguments all this week at nine: 30 p.m. eastern on c find supreme court coverage on c-span.org/supreme court. ♪ >> do you solemnly swear that in the testimony you are about to give, it will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the

truth, so help you god? >> saturdays, watch american history tv's congress investigates for major investigations in our country's history. each week authors and historians will tell these stories, we will see historic footage and the impact and legacy of key congressional hearings. this week, a committee led by senator and future president harry truman in the 1940's examine the national defense program and whether there was corruption and inefficiency. it may have shortened world war ii. watch congress investigates saturdays at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. ♪ >> c-span has been delivering unfiltered congressional coverage for 45 years. here is a highlight. >> i would like to ask my

distinguished republican colleague if he would take the chair. >> i am happy to yield. >> will the gentlemen please take the chair? [applause] >> thank you. [indiscernible] >> i guess we have got to adopt this resolution. [applause] >> the house will be in order. >>