cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15645865
If the Supreme Court rules that bump stocks aren’t machine guns later this summer, it could quickly open an unfettered marketplace of newer, more powerful rapid-fire devices.
The Trump administration, in a rare break from gun rights groups, quickly banned bump stocks after the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert that was the deadliest in U.S. history. In the ensuing years, gun rights groups challenged the underlying rationale that bump stocks are effectively machine guns — culminating in a legal fight now before the Supreme Court.
This isn’t even remotely true. You can own a machine gun in the US, you just need to fill out the proper paperwork and pay the tax. What you can’t do in the US is make new machine guns, which is why bump stocks were controversial because it allowed a person to get around the law and operate a firearm in a manner similar to a machinegun yet still be registered as a semiautomatic.