US Supreme Court overturns ban on bump stocks

3 mins

Calls immediately grew for Congress to intervene to change the law. In the background of this affair figure, there is the Las Vegas massacrein the west of the country, the worst in modern American history, in which 58 people were killed and more than 500 injured on October 1, 2017. Most of the 22 rifles of the author of the carnage were equipped with these stocks removable and he was thus able to fire up to nine bullets per second.

Read alsoFirearms: the debate rages in the United States around “bump stocks”

The Court’s six conservative justices, against the advice of the three progressives, concluded that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a federal agency, had exceeded its authority by reclassifying in 2018 “bump stocks” in the category of machine guns, prohibited by a law from 1934.

“ We consider a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock not to be a “machine gun” because it cannot fire more than one shot with “a single pull of the trigger.” », writes the judge Clarence Thomas on behalf of the majority, referring to the letter of the law, adopted at the time of Prohibition, long before the invention of this device.

“ Deadly consequences »

The Las Vegas Massacre demonstrated that a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a submachine gun and therefore strengthened the arguments in favor of revising this law », Recognizes conservative judge Samuel Alito.

“ But an event that highlights the need to amend the law does not by itself change the meaning of the law “, he adds, suggesting intervention by Congress to remedy this inconsistency. Expressing her disagreement, the judge Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the two other progressives, criticizes the majority for “ reject the commonly accepted definition » machine guns. This decision “will have deadly consequences ” in ” hindering government efforts to prevent shooters like the one in Las Vegas from gaining access “, she warns.

The Giffords association, which campaigns for strengthening control of individual weapons, deplored a decision ” reckless and dangerous », recalling nevertheless that the “ bump stocks remained banned in at least 16 states “. “ Congress must act to repair the damage and make clear that all automatic weapon conversion devices are illegal under federal law “, she says.

“ Save lives »

The Democratic President Joe Biden also urged “ Congress to ban bump stocks, pass an assault weapons ban and act to save lives », assuring that he would sign “ immediately » any text to this effect. The campaign of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, whose administration was at the origin of the ban on “bump stocks”, welcomed the decision, assuring that in the face of crime, “the right to bear arms is ‘has never been so vital.’

The influential arms lobby, the NRA, whose support Donald Trump received against Joe Biden, was also grateful to the Court for having “ rightly confined the agencies of the executive power to their role of enforcing the law, and not of drafting it “. The ATF had begun to review its position on these detachable stocks following the Las Vegas tragedy. Then in February 2018, a few days after a Parkland high school shooting, in Florida, in the southeast of the country, where 17 people had died, the Trump administration had pledged to ban them. Coincidentally, the American authorities began demolishing a building at this high school on Friday. In December 2018, the ATF announced that it would now consider “bump stocks” as machine guns, ordering holders to destroy them or turn them over to the authorities within 90 days.