The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday decided to review the legality of the 2018 ban on “bump stocks,” a device that allows volley firing from semi-automatic rifles, effectively converting them into machine guns.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a federal agency, began reviewing its position on these removables following the October 1, 2017 Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead and more than 500 injured stocks.
Twelve of the rifles used by the perpetrator were equipped with them, allowing him to fire at a rate of up to nine bullets per second.
The ATF announced in December 2018 that it would now consider “bump stocks” to be machine guns that were illegal to own and required owners to destroy them or return them to authorities within 90 days.
At the same time, the administration of Republican President Donald Trump committed to banning “bump stocks” after a murder at a high school in Florida (17 dead on February 14, 2018).
After conflicting federal court decisions on the legality of the ATF’s designation, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the issue at the request of the Justice Department, the Democratic administration and a gun seller.
In addition, the court’s nine justices will hold a hearing next week for the first time since a June 2022 ruling on the limits of the right to bear arms, a particularly serious issue in the United States.
They must decide between their interpretation of this Second Amendment right and a federal law that prohibits people facing a deportation order for domestic violence from owning a gun.