JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court. Congress has long restricted access to "machinegun[s],'" a category of firearms defined by the ability to "shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger." 26 U. S. C. 5845(b); see also 18 U. S. C. 922(o). Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns. This case asks whether a bump stock"an accessory for a semiautomatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire)"converts the rifle into a "machinegun." We hold that it does not and therefore affirm.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting. On October 1, 2017, a shooter opened fire from a hotel room overlooking an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, Nevada, in what would become the deadliest mass shooting in U. S. history. Within a matter of minutes, using several hundred rounds of ammunition, the shooter killed 58 people and wounded over 500. He did so by affixing bump stocks to commonly available, semiautomatic rifles. These simple devices harness a rifle's recoil energy to slide the rifle back and forth and repeatedly "bump" the shooter's stationary trigger finger, creating rapid fire. All the shooter had to do was pull the trigger and press the gun forward. The bump stock did the rest.
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