The ATF got the proverbial smackdown regarding bump stocks. The Supreme Court correctly noted that federal agencies can't "reinterpret" the laws in any manner they desire. They must follow the guidelines provided by Congress.

That means they can't redefine a bump stock as a machine gun even though they really, really wanted to.

With that ruling in effect, an untold number of Americans are free to reclaim bump stocks handed over to the ATF. The agency has no right to continue to hold them, and that's good news.

The bad news is that the ATF has decided to create a deadline for reclaiming those devices.

The ATF has started the embarrassing process of returning bump-stocks to their original owners after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the agency wrongfully determined they were machineguns, but only if the owners act within 90 days.

The ATF sent letters titled “Notice of Opportunity to Request Return of Bump Stock(s) in ATF Custody” last week. They include an address in Washington D.C. and an email that the former owners can contact to arrange for the return of their property. Once the requests are processed, the letter states, “you will be contacted by someone from the local ATF field office to arrange retrieval of your bump stock(s).”

...

Florida Carry co-founder and co-executive director, Sean Caranna was, once again, struck by the ATF’s arbitrariness in setting the 90-day deadline.

“Rather than simply returning people’s property, the ATF has established a bureaucratic and paperwork burden on law-abiding Americans in an attempt to run out the 90-day clock that the ATF has created without any statutory authority,” Caranna said. “Clearly, ATF leadership has learned nothing from the Supreme Court’s mandate that government agencies can’t make up new rules that are not expressly provided for by law.”

There are times when a deadline makes sense, such as when you need information by a certain time so you can make a decision by a certain date. Other times it's when you know that without one, another party will never accomplish the task set for them.

But this isn't either of those, nor is it any other situation that demands a deadline at all, much less a 90-day one.

The ATF overstepped. People were forced to turn in their bump stocks. Now they've decided to create a completely arbitrary deadline for people to request to get their property back, and for what? There's literally no reason for this.

What, is the one guy who knows which bump stock goes to which person retiring in three months?

This is nothing more than the ATF flexing its muscles. It knows that if it sets up the deadline and people don't get their bump stocks in time, it's generally not going to be worth the hassle to sue them all over again. Besides, even if they sue, the bump stock will probably be destroyed or whatever and it won't matter because no one is getting something that no longer exists.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure they can get away with it, too.

Oh, between Gargill and the death of the Chevron deference, the ATF doesn't have the latitude it used to, but there's going to be some degree of leniency, at least at the lower courts, for administrative matters. That's what this falls into, whether we like it or not.

But just because it might possibly be legal doesn't make it right.