Breitbart News sat down on Friday with Mike Cargill, the man who brought the case that resulted in the Supreme Court of the United States striking down the ATF bump stock ban.
On June 14, Breitbart News reported SCOTUS’s 6-3 ruling, wherein the majority noted that bump stocks do not turn semiautomatic firearms into “machineguns.”
We had spoken with Cargill off and on during the legal process leading up the June 14 ruling, and as recently as November 5, 2023, he told us he anticipated that a ruling against the bump stock ban would begin a necessary de-weaponization of federal agencies.
Cargill said, “The federal government, they initially started out with just the bump stock. They focused on this little part, this little piece here. But since then, it’s grown to other things. Federal agencies are using the exact same verbiage, the exact rule they used to ban the bump stock to go after everything else.”
He added, “They’re going after AR-15 stabilizer braces, they’re going after triggers, after 80 percent frames and receivers, all with the same words and language as they used against bump stocks.”
Cargill went on to explain why, in his opinion, knocking out the bump stock ban would knock out all the other rules — stabilizer braces, triggers, 80 percent frames, etc. — which the ATF has put into place or are pursuing.
On June 21, one week after SCOTUS ruling ended the bump stock ban, a happy Cargill told Breitbart News, “I told you we were going to do it.
“This actually changes the game for the gun control argument; it changes that entire fight now,” he added.
Cargill said, “The SCOTUS ruling stops the ATF in their tracks, as far as trying to create any rules whatsoever. This case is going to be case law that everyone will be using now to say, ‘Hey, you can’t come after the brace, you can’t come after the trigger, etc.'”
He noted that now the agencies are going to have to rely on Congress to make laws or change laws in order to achieve what the agencies would otherwise try to do through regulatory rulemaking. He said this highlights another important matter: the elections in November. Cargill said, “We’ve got to get out there and vote and be sure Republicans retain control of the House or gain control of the Senate, that’s how we can keep laws from being passed that undercut our Second Amendment freedom.”
The day we spoke to Cargill, his store began selling bump stocks again.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
