Reporters gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building on June 14, 2024, as the Court released a series of rulings, including a pivotal 6-3 decision that nullified the federal ban on bump stocks. This ban had been enacted by former President Donald Trump following the tragic 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas.
The incident in Las Vegas remains the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, where the assailant used bump stocks on 22 of his firearms, enabling them to fire at a rate similar to that of automatic weapons. The massacre resulted in 58 deaths and injuries to around 500 concertgoers.
The Supreme Court’s decision, which split along ideological lines, declared the Trump administration’s extension of the machine gun ban to include bump stocks unconstitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas clarified, “This case asks whether a bump stock – an accessory for a semiautomatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger – converts the rifle into a ‘machine gun.’ We hold that it does not.”
Following the ruling, Trump’s campaign emphasized respect for the Court’s decision, underscoring the previous administration’s pro-gun stance despite its initial ban on bump stocks. The National Rifle Association (NRA) hailed the decision, praising it as a necessary check on executive overreach.
Conversely, gun control advocates and Democrats reacted with anger. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign criticized the Court for siding with the gun lobby over public safety. “Weapons of war have no place on the streets of America,” stated campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler, condemning the decision as a betrayal of community safety.
Esther Sanchez-Gomez from the gun control organization Giffords also condemned the ruling, citing widespread public support for a bump stock ban. She accused the conservative justices of prioritizing gun rights over American lives.
The controversy over bump stocks began in 2018, when the Justice Department under Trump reclassified these devices as illegal under a 1934 law banning machine guns. During February’s oral arguments, Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher argued that bump stocks allow users to discharge 100-round magazines within seconds, thus fulfilling the criteria Congress intended to ban.
However, Texas gun seller Michael Cargill’s legal team argued that the ATF had exceeded its authority in equating bump stocks with machine guns, given that the 1934 law’s definition did not anticipate such technology.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, criticized the majority’s interpretation as inconsistent with common sense. “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” she remarked, underscoring her view that bump stocks should indeed be classified as machine guns.
