Washington, June 14: The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Trump-era 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 US history.
The high court found 6-3 the Trump administration did not follow federal law when it reversed course and banned bump stocks after a gunman in Las Vegas attacked a country music festival with assault rifles in 2017. He fired more than 1,000 rounds in the crowd in 11 minutes, leaving 60 people dead and injuring hundreds more.
A Texas gun shop owner challenged the ban, arguing the Justice Department wrongly classified the accessories as illegal machine guns.
The Biden administration said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made the right choice for the accessories that can allow weapons to fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute.
It marked the latest gun case to come before high court, where a conservative supermajority handed down a landmark decision expanding gun rights in 2022 and is also weighing another gun case challenging a federal law intended to keep guns away from people under domestic violence restraining orders.
The arguments in the bump stock case, though, were more about whether the ATF had overstepped its authority than the Second Amendment. (AP)
