Supreme Court wrestles with challenge to bump stock ban
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared torn Wednesday about a challenge to a Trumpera ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns and was used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The high court is weighing whether the Trump administration followed federal law when it reversed course and banned bump stocks after a gunman in Las Vegas attacked a country music festival with assault-style rifles in 2017. Many of the weapons were equipped with bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. More than 1,000 rounds were fired into the crowd in 11 minutes, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds more.
The arguments largely focused on whether guns with bump stocks can be considered illegal machine guns under federal law. A Texas gun shop owner argues that bump stocks don’t change the core function of a semi-automatic weapon enough to make it illegal. The Biden administration says bump stocks fall under the legal definition of machine gun.
The latest gun case to come before the justices offers a fresh test for a court with a conservative supermajority to define the limits of gun restrictions in an era where mass shootings are prevalent.
Conservative justices raised questions about whether machine-gun laws dating to the 1930s apply to bump stocks and about the Justice Department’s previous finding that the accessories were legal.
“Intuitively, I am entirely sympathetic to your argument,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, “I think the question is, why didn’t
Congress pass that legislation to make this cover it more clearly?”
Justices from the court’s liberal wing suggested it was “common sense” that bump stocks would fall under laws aimed at Prohibition-era violence from gangsters such as Al Capone. “This is in the heartland of what they were concerned about, which is anything that takes just a little human action to produce more than one shot,” Justice Elena Kagan said.
Federal appeals courts have been divided over the bump stock rule.
The bump stock case is not directly about the Second Amendment. Instead, the plaintiffs argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives overstepped its authority in imposing the ban. The agency had previously decided bump stocks should not be classified as machine guns and therefore not be banned.
That changed after Las Vegas.
Marisa Marano, 42, survived the shooting at the show she attended with her sister, but struggles with the lasting effects on her life and community. “I will never forget the sound of a machine gun firing into the crowd that night as Gina and I ran for our lives,” said Marano, who is now a
volunteer for the group Moms Demand Action.
Bump stocks are accessories that replace a rifle’s stock, the part that rests against the shoulder. They harness the gun’s recoil energy so that the trigger bumps against the shooter’s stationary finger, allowing the gun to fire rapidly.
They were invented in the early 2000s. Under Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, the ATF decided that bump stocks didn’t transform semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. The agency revisited the issue at President Donald Trump’s urging after the Las Vegas shooting and reversed that decision.
The plaintiffs argue that rifles with bump stocks are different from machine guns because the shooter still must exert pressure on the weapon to keep the rapid fire going and the trigger keeps moving.
Government lawyers pointed out that traditional machine guns also require pressure from the shooter. They argue bump stocks fall under the legal definition of machine guns because the shooter’s finger stays still while the gun fires hundreds of rounds per minute.
A decision in the case is expected by early summer.