Rule to ban bump stocks on tap
Sessions proposal takes congressional action out of equation
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that the Justice Department was proposing to ban socalled bump stocks through regulations rather than wait for Congress to act, a move that defies recommendations by federal law enforcement officials.
Sessions’ announcement came moments after President Donald Trump said on Twitter that the Justice Department would soon announce a rule banning bump stocks.
It also comes as public pressure mounts on Washington to curb gun violence after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead. Students will gather today in Washington to protest gun violence for an event called March for Our Lives.
The Justice Department said it was publishing for public comment a proposed rule “that would define ‘machine gun’ to include bump stocktype devices under federal law — effectively banning them,” Sessions said in a statement.
A bump-stock ban would defy the conclusion of Justice Department officials, who have said they could not, under existing law, stop the sales of bump stocks, accessories that allow semi-automatic guns to mimic automatic fire, and that congressional action was needed to ban them. But Sessions said the department had worked around those concerns.
“After the senseless attack in Las Vegas,” Sessions said, “this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress.”
In the Las Vegas shooting, a gunman killed 58 people using semi-automatic weapons outfitted with bump stocks.
The 55-page proposal said it was redefining machine guns to include bump stocks because “such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger.”
The proposal would force bump-stock owners to surrender or destroy them the day the rule would go into effect.
By reinterpreting the conclusion that was made under President Barack Obama, the Justice Department could open itself up to lawsuits when the rule is finalized. Litigation would tie up the ban.
Legal experts said that groups that sue could win because makers of the devices specifically designed them so they could not qualify as machine guns under the law.