(Washington) The US Supreme Court decided on Friday to examine the legality of the 2018 ban on “bump stocks”, a device allowing burst firing with semi-automatic rifles, transforming them de facto into machine guns.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a federal agency, began reviewing its stance on these detachable stocks following the Las Vegas shooting on January 1er October 2017, which left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.
Twelve of the rifles used by the perpetrator of the killing were equipped with it, allowing him to fire at a rate of up to 9 bullets per second.
The ATF announced in December 2018 that it would now consider “bump stocks” as machine guns, the possession of which is illegal, ordering the holders to destroy them or return them to the authorities within 90 days.
At the same time, the administration of Republican President Donald Trump committed to banning “bump stocks” after a killing in a Florida school (17 dead on February 14, 2018).
Following conflicting decisions by federal courts on the legality of this characterization by the ATF, the Supreme Court agreed to examine the question, at the request of the Department of Justice of the Democratic administration and a seller of weapons.
Furthermore, for the first time since a judgment in June 2022, the nine judges of the Court will hold a hearing next week on the limits of the right to bear arms, a particularly serious question in the United States.
They will have to arbitrate between their interpretation of this right enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution and a federal law prohibiting people subject to a removal order for domestic violence from possessing a weapon.