(UnitedVoice.com) – US District Judge Reed O’Connor has served on the federal bench for almost 20 years. He’s been a reliable conservative jurist at that time, and Republicans often chose to file lawsuits in the Northern District of Texas. He recently demonstrated why the GOP likes him so much in a decision against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
On July 23, Judge O’Connor issued a ruling regarding the ATF ban on forced reset triggers, blocking the rule. The device is attached to AR-15-style rifles to allow them to fire continuously, like an automatic weapon, if constant finger pressure is applied. The forced reset trigger forcibly returns the trigger of a gun to its ready-to-fire position after the weapon is fired, allowing for successive shots.
O’Connor cited the recent US Supreme Court ruling about bump stocks in his decision. In Garland v. Cargill, the justices determined that the ATF’s bump stock ban was unconstitutional because it expanded the federal prohibition on machine guns without input from the legislature. Justice Clarence Thomas explained that bump stocks do not allow a user to fire the gun “automatically” as the law requires.
Like the bump stock ban, the forced reset trigger prohibition was enacted in response to the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 people. The suspect in the shooting took an elevated position in a hotel room and fired into a crowd on the Vegas Strip who were attending a country music concert. Hundreds suffered bullet wounds and other severe injuries.
O’Connor addressed the shooting, saying it was “tragic,” but that didn’t justify “a court altering statutory text” written by lawmakers. “That responsibility belongs exclusively to Congress,” the judge said.
The National Foundation for Gun Rights was thrilled by the ruling. Executive Director Hannah Hill said the ATF was dealt a blow for its “unconstitutional agency overreach.”
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