Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) on Friday condemned a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic weapons to fire like machine guns, and asked Congress to pass legislation to counter the decision.
“The far-right Supreme Court continues its unprecedented attack on public safety by reversing common-sense guidance issued in 2018 by the ATF. Bump stocks have played a devastating role in many of our country’s horrific mass shootings, but unfortunately it is no surprise to see the Supreme Court reverse this necessary public safety rule as they push their extreme, out-of-reach agenda. They are even further to the right of Donald Trump,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the decision.
“As I warned the Trump administration at the time, the only way to permanently close this gap is through legislation. Senate Democrats are ready to pass legislation to ban bump stocks, but we will need votes from Senate Republicans,” he said.
The Trump administration banned bump stocks through executive action following the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, where a gunman used the device and killed nearly 60 people, making it the deadliest mass shooting in history. US history.
A 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, however, ruled on Friday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority in banning bump stocks.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, found that the federal agency could not classify bump stocks as machine guns because they do not allow a rifle to fire multiple rounds by the “sole function” of the trigger.
“Even if one aspect of the gun’s operation could be viewed as ‘automatic,’ that would not mean that the gun ‘fires…automatically more than one shot…by a single trigger function,’” Thomas wrote.
“Thus, even if a semiautomatic rifle could fire more than one shot with a single trigger function, it would not do so ‘automatically,’” he wrote.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
