Supreme Court Strikes Down Fed­er­al Bump Stock Ban

The Supreme Court struck down a fed­er­al ban on bump stocks enact­ed by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion on Fri­day.
The 6–3 rul­ing was split along ide­o­log­i­cal lines. Jus­tice Clarence Thomas wrote in the major­i­ty opin­ion that the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co, Firearms and Explo­sives (ATF) exceed­ed its statu­to­ry author­i­ty when it announced a ban on bump stocks fol­low­ing a 2017 mass shoot­ing in Las Vegas. In the rul­ing, Thomas said that equip­ping rifles with bump stocks does not turn them into machine guns, mean­ing they can­not be pro­hib­it­ed under exist­ing law.
“This case asks whether a bump stock — an acces­so­ry for a semi-auto­mat­ic rifle that all …