In 2018, the federal government banned bump stocks for that reason, but gun enthusiasts have challenged the regulation in court, contending that only Congress has the power to enact such a ban.
The Supreme Court seemed conflicted Wednesday about a federal gun regulation that outlaws so-called bump stocks. These are devices that modify semiautomatic guns, converting them into weapons that fire as many as 600 bullets a minute.
In 2018, the federal government banned bump stocks for that reason, but gun enthusiasts have challenged the regulation in court, contending that only Congress has the power to enact such a ban.
Machine guns were developed by the military for battle in the late 1800s, but by the early 1920s they became the weapon of choice for gangsters like Al Capone. In 1934, an alarmed Congress sought to prevent the ongoing terror on the streets by banning automatic weapons. Fast forward to 2017 when a single gunman, using multiple guns that were modified by bump stocks, killed 60 people and wounded 400 others at a Las Vegas concert—all in the space of 11 minutes.
The carnage was so horrific that President Trump ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to ban the sale and possession of bump stocks—devices that the ATF now says convert otherwise legal semiautomatic weapons into illegal machine guns.
