Courts Rethinking Machine Gun Ban in the Post-Bruen World

Gun safety activists decry rulings as irresponsible, as gun rights activists say 2022 Supreme Court’s Bruen decision is about clarifying the founders’ intent.

Semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms, including some that were modified using 3D printed parts, at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) National Services Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on Sept. 4, 2024. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

In 2008, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, now deceased, called the prospect that a court would rule that fully automatic firearms were protected by the Second Amendment “startling.”

Two U.S. District Court judges have issued such rulings based on the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.