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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.
Justices appeared divided on the issue during oral arguments in February, and they are on the clock to hand down a ruling by June. How they ultimately define machine guns will have a sweeping impact not only on bump stocks, but a whole class of similar rapid-fire devices effectively banned in the U.S.