US top court rejects federal ban on gun ‘bump stocks’
Al Jazeera
Supreme Court rules prohibition on device that increases the firing rate of semi-automatic weapons is unlawful.
The United States Supreme Court declared a federal ban on “bump stock” devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire rapidly unlawful, rejecting yet another firearms restriction.
In a six-to-three ruling on Friday, the justices upheld a lower court’s decision siding with a gun shop owner and gun-rights advocate who challenged the ban by claiming a US agency improperly interpreted a federal law prohibiting machineguns as extending to bump stocks.
The conservative justices were in the majority, with the liberal justices dissenting.
The rule was imposed in 2019 by the administration of former President Donald Trump after the devices were used during a 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at a Las Vegas country music festival.
President Joe Biden cited the 2017 incident decrying the top court’s decision.
