The U.S. Supreme Court recently lifted a federal ban on bump stocks, a type of gun attachment allowing rifles and other semi-automatic weapons to rapid-fire rounds of ammunition.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) enacted the ban during former President Donald Trump’s administration after a gunman used a bump stock to kill 60 people and injure 400 in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, according to NPR.
A bump stock replaces a rifle’s standard stock, allowing the weapon to slide back and forth rapidly. Bump stocks are commonly used on AR- and AK-style rifles and allow up to 800 shots per minute, which is on pace with machine guns that fire up to 500 to 1,000 shots per minute.
The gunman in the Las Vegas shooting shot over 1,000 bullets in 11 minutes, the Associated Press reported.
Executive Director of Protect Minnesota Maggiy Emery said the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the federal bump stock ban will make communities across the country more vulnerable to mass gun violence.
“It will make our communities so much less safe,” Emery said. “We’ve seen the damage that these bump stocks can do. We saw that at Las Vegas. We should not be allowing these kinds of deadly, deadly implements into our neighborhoods and communities.”
Senior Vice President of Governmental Affairs at Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus Rob Doar said the Supreme Court ruling was appropriate because of ATF rules stating bump stocks are different from traditional automatic weapons.
“ATF had spent nearly a decade telling manufacturers and individuals that they weren’t machine guns and that they were illegal to have an abrupt change in the status without any act of legislation was problematic,” Doar said. “So I think as far as that goes, the decision was appropriate.”
Though the ruling did not make bump stocks legal in Minnesota, where the tool is already outlawed, Emery said out-of-state lawmakers and leaders should consider Minnesota’s precedent when making decisions about gun laws to help reduce the use of deadly weapons.
Doar said it is difficult to determine if lifting the bump stock ban will increase the likelihood of mass shootings across the country because there are other mechanisms, including illegal modifications, which can have similar results as bump stocks.
“(Bump stocks) have been in existence for over a decade, so anything would be pure speculation as far as whether or not there would be an increase in incidences,” Doar said.
Besides bump stocks, Minnesota also outlawed binary triggers in May, which deploy an additional bullet when the gun’s trigger is released.
Gov. Tim Walz posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, calling the bump stock ruling “reckless” since they were used in one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.
“Bans on bump stocks are common sense, and this reversal only brings us backwards in making our streets and communities safer,” Walz wrote.
Doar said because AR weapons offer so many different variations and customizations, the “sky is the limit” for add-ons and additional mechanisms.
“That’s part of the attractiveness of a platform, like the AR platform, it is customizable,” Doar said.
Doar added during Trump’s era, there were multiple bills in Congress banning bump stocks through legislation instead of a rule reinterpretation. Doar said that would have been a more constitutionally appropriate way of banning bump stocks.
Emery said that although Minnesota has outlawed mechanisms like bump stocks and dual switches, that does not mean they do not exist here. However, Emery added the decision by the Supreme Court will not help make communities safer.
“We all should work really hard to make sure that our communities in Minnesota and communities over in Minneapolis, wherever you are, are doing the work to make their community safer because we can’t count on the Supreme Court,” Emery said.