US Supreme Court lifts ban on gun bump stocks

The US Supreme Court has lifted a ban bump stocks, the rapid-fire gun accessory used in America’s deadliest mass shooting.

In a decision on Friday, the court said the government did not have the right to ban the accessories.

The Trump administration banned bump stocks after they were used to kill almost 60 people at a concert in Las Vegas in 2017.

But a Texas gun shop owner who challenged the ban said the government went too far in defining the accessories as machine guns, which are illegal under federal law, and took his fight all the way to America’s highest court.

The court said a semi-automatic rifle with an attachment does not qualify as a machine gun under federal law.

During a hearing on the case in March, some justices on the conservative-led court appeared sceptical of the ban, noting that no other presidential administration or Congress had tried to outlaw the relatively new devices.

In the 1986 Firearms Act, machine guns are defined as any “weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger”.

The bump stock harnesses a rifle’s recoil to rapidly fire multiple rounds. It replaces the weapon’s stock, which is held against the shoulder, and allows the gun to slide back and forward between the user’s shoulder and trigger finger. That motion – or bump – lets the gun fire without the user having to move their finger.

The attacker in the Las Vegas shooting had attached bump stocks to 12 of his semi-automatic rifles which allowed him to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, the same rate as many machine guns. He killed 60 people and wounded hundreds more who had gathered for a music festival.

This is a developing story. More updates to follow.

Source: BBC