You won't hear me say this often, but: Thank goodness this federal court struck down a Trump-era rule about guns!

A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a firearm accessory that enables a semi-automatic gun to shoot at an increased rate of fire.

In a 13-3 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), acting under "tremendous" public pressure, short-circuited the legislative process by approving a rule to define bump stocks as "machineguns," which are illegal to possess. The court said ATF did not have the authority from Congress to do so.

Uh, yeah, obviously they didn't have that authority. A "bump stock" is neither a machine nor a gun; it's an attachment to a firearm, nothing more.

Their practicality in terms of self-defense is debatable at best; it renders the entire gun inaccurate and wasteful of valuable ammo. Here's one in action on a semiautomatic AR-style rifle:

It's fun to shoot, for a bit. That's all. But it's definitely not a "machine gun," and the court ruled on that correctly:

A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of "machinegun" set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act," Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the lead majority opinion.

The Biden administration could very well appeal this decision to the Supreme Court. Stay tuned.