Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump-Era Ban On Bump Stocks, Gun Accessories Used In 2017 Vegas Massacre

Washington – Bump stocks are a gun attachment that enables semi-automatic rifles to fire quickly like machine guns and were used in the bloodiest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The Supreme Court overturned a Trump-era ban on them on Friday.

The Trump administration reversing course and outlawing bump stocks in 2017 after a gunman in Las Vegas attacked a country music festival with assault rifles was ruled by the high court 6-3 to have violated federal law. In eleven minutes, he unleashed more than a thousand rounds into the crowd, killing sixty and wounding hundreds more.

The owner of a gun store in Texas appealed the prohibition, claiming the Justice Department misclassified the attachments as illegal machine guns.

Bump Stocks | AP news Image

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump-Era Ban On Bump Stocks, Gun Accessories Used In 2017 Vegas Massacre

The Biden administration maintained that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made the appropriate decision when selecting the attachments that enable weapons to fire hundreds of rounds per minute.

It was the most recent gun case to be heard by the high court, which in 2022 issued a historic ruling extending gun rights thanks to a conservative supermajority. The court is currently considering another gun case that challenges a federal statute meant to keep firearms away from those who are subject to restraining orders related to domestic abuse.

The Second Amendment was less of a focus of the arguments in the bump stock case than whether the ATF had exceeded its power.

Liberal justices on the court said it was “common sense” that under federal law, anything that could discharge a “torrent of bullets” qualified as a machine weapon. But conservative justices questioned why Congress had not taken action to outlaw bump stocks and what would have happened if the ATF had reversed its decision ten years after deeming the accessory legal.

Bump Stocks | Rolling Stone Image

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump-Era Ban On Bump Stocks, Gun Accessories Used In 2017 Vegas Massacre

After lower courts divided over bump stocks, developed in the early 2000s, the top court took up the case. Bump stocks did not turn semi-automatic rifles into machine guns, the ATF determined under Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama. Following the Las Vegas shooting and another mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school that claimed 17 lives, the agency undid those rulings at Trump’s request.

The portion of a rifle that sits against the shoulder is called the stock, and bump stocks are attachments. By using the weapon’s recoil energy to cause the trigger to strike the shooter’s immobile finger, bump stocks enable the pistol to fire at a pace similar to that of a conventional machine gun. Individual bans on bump stocks exist in fifteen states and the District of Columbia.

The plaintiff, Texas gun shop owner and military veteran Michael Cargill was represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, an organization supported by conservative benefactors like the Koch network. His defense admitted that bump stocks allow for rapid fire but contended that they are different since the shooter has to put in more effort to keep the pistol shooting.

Bump Stocks | LA Times Image

Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump-Era Ban On Bump Stocks, Gun Accessories Used In 2017 Vegas Massacre

Government lawyers claimed the effort required by the shooter was minor and didn’t make a legal difference. The Justice Department said the ATF altered its stance on bump stocks after performing a more in-depth review inspired by the Las Vegas shooting and came to the proper decision.

When the ban went into force in 2019, around 520,000 bump stocks were in circulation. The plaintiffs alleged in court documents that the ban forced users to either surrender or destroy them, resulting in a combined estimated loss of $100 million.

SOURCE – (AP)