WASHINGTON (trfnews.i234.me) — The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns. The decision marks a significant ruling on a device used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The high court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the Trump administration did not adhere to federal law when it banned bump stocks following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. During the massacre, a gunman using bump stocks fired over 1,000 rounds in just 11 minutes, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds more.
The ban was challenged by Texas gun shop owner Michael Cargill, who argued that the Justice Department wrongly classified the accessories as illegal machine guns. The Biden administration defended the ban, claiming the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) made the correct decision for devices that allow weapons to fire at an accelerated rate.
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority had previously expanded gun rights in a landmark 2022 decision and is currently weighing another gun case involving domestic violence restraining orders. However, the bump stock case primarily focused on whether the ATF overstepped its authority rather than on Second Amendment issues.
Justices from the court’s liberal wing argued it was “common sense” to classify devices that can unleash a “torrent of bullets” as machine guns under federal law. Conversely, conservative justices questioned why Congress had not acted to ban bump stocks and the implications of the ATF reversing its stance a decade after initially declaring them legal.
Bump stocks, invented in the early 2000s, replace a rifle’s stock to use the gun’s recoil energy, enabling rapid fire. The ATF had previously ruled under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama that bump stocks did not transform semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. This changed after the Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida shootings, leading to the Trump administration’s ban.
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have their own bans on bump stocks. The Supreme Court’s ruling affects an estimated 520,000 bump stocks in circulation, which people were required to surrender or destroy, resulting in an estimated $100 million loss, according to court documents.