The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Trump-era ban on firearms, in a victory for gun rights advocates.
The ban was passed following the use of shock absorbers in the deadly 2017 shooting in Las Vegas. Fifty-eight people were killed, making it the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in US history.
But the Supreme Court overturned the ban in a six-to-three decision. The conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled that shock weapons are not machine guns.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the court. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the dissent and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Conservative majority on Supreme Court rules that bump weapons are not machine guns, overturning ban
In Garland v. Cargill, gun owner Michael Cargill turned over two stocks to the ATF after the ban, but later sued.
A district court ruled that shock weapons are in line with machine guns, but the ruling was overturned by an appeals court.
“We hold that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a stock is not a ‘machine gun’ because it cannot fire more than one shot ‘with a single trigger pull,'” Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.
‘And even if I could, I wouldn’t do it “automatically.” “Therefore, the ATF exceeded its legal authority by issuing a rule classifying ammunition as machine guns,” he continued.
In his concurring opinion, Alito referred to the deadly shooting in Las Vegas where a man opened fire on a music festival from his suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel.
‘The horrific shooting that occurred in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the legal text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semi-automatic rifle with a stock can have the same lethal effect as a machine gun and therefore strengthened the case for amending section 5845(b),’ he wrote.
‘But an event that highlights the need to modify a law does not in itself change the meaning of the law. “There is a simple remedy for the unequal treatment of stocks and machine guns,” he continued.
He wrote that Congress can modify the law.
Justice Clarence Thomas (front row, second from left) wrote the majority opinion. Justice Samuel Alito (front row, second from right) wrote a concurring opinion. Justice Sotomayor (front row, far left) wrote the dissent.
The ban on bump stocks was passed after the deadly shooting in Las Vegas in 2017. 58 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a country music festival.
This story is developing and will be updated.