The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a federal ban on rapid-fire gun “bump stocks” that allow killers like the Las Vegas country music festival mass shooter to fire hundreds of shots a minute.
The conservative-led court split 6-3 along ideological lines to rule that the devices favored by mass killers do not transform weapons into banned machine guns even though they permit much more rapid fire shooting.
“A bump stock does not alter the basic mechanics of bump firing, and the trigger still must be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to the 2017 Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
“In murdering so many people so quickly, he did not rely on a quick trigger finger,” she wrote. “He relied on bump stocks.”
The liberal jurist said common sense suggests bump stocks effectively turn legal weapons into machine guns by allowing far more shots to be fired quickly.
“When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck,” Sotomayor wrote disdainfully.
The ruling strikes down a regulation by the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency that was implemented under former President Trump following the Las Vegas slaughter, which took place at a country music festival.
The Biden administration strongly supported the ban on bump stocks and defended it in the high court.
Congress could reimpose the ban if it passed a law specifically banning bump stocks or redefining machine guns in a way that would ban them. But few think that is likely anytime soon because gun-friendly Republicans control the House of Representatives and could use the filibuster to block action in the Senate.
The bump stocks case marked the latest gun case to come before the high court, which is controlled by a right-wing supermajority.
The court handed down a landmark decision dramatically expanding gun rights in 2022 and is weighing another gun case challenging a federal law intended to keep guns away from people under domestic violence restraining orders.