Gun Rights Organizations had contested the federal law. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied two appeals from gun owners who sought to overturn the federal government’s ban on the sale of bump stocks, which are devices that enable a semi-automatic weapon to fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull.
The court’s ruling, which is a huge victory for those who push for gun control and for government efforts to control dangerous weapons, was not further explained by the court. Aphosian v. Garland and Gun Owners of America v. Garland are the cases that were dismissed.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives changed federal regulations in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting atrocity to classify bump stocks as machine guns under a 1986 law that outlaws machine firearms. 58 people were killed when a shooter using weapons with bump stocks opened fire from his hotel room onto a crowd of concertgoers, breaking the pledge made by then-President Donald Trump to outlaw the devices.
The restriction was contested by a number of gun rights organizations who claimed that the ATF lacked the authority granted by the National Firearms Act to designate bump stocks as machine guns and so outlaw their usage. The organisations did not claim in their appeal that the Second Amendment’s protections would be restricted by the restriction on bump stocks.
“This ruling establishes a terrible and perilous precedent that will enable the ATF to arbitrary regulate other guns. Even without a congressional act, Joe Biden is already abusing this very same precedent to outlaw millions of legally purchased pistols!” Gun Owners of America released a statement on Twitter.
The decision by a court with a conservative majority comes shortly after a significant decision in June that expanded gun rights by holding that an individual is permitted to carry a concealed weapon for self-defence outside the home under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments
