An Austin gun shop owner succeeded Friday on a years-long quest to overturn a federal ban on bump stocks, winning a 6-3 victory from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bump stocks are devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds in a minute. The court ruled the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can not include bump stocks under legislation banning machine guns. The overturned ATF rule required owners of bump stocks to either destroy them or surrender them to the ATF to avoid criminal prosecution.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a bump stock does not transform a firearm into an automatic weapon, striking down a federal rule that banned bump stocks. 

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, "Congress has long restricted access to "'machinegun[s],'" a category of firearms defined by the ability to "shoot, automatically more than one shot . . . by a single function of the trigger." 

The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, ruling that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority by determining that the gun attachments turn firearms into machine guns.

The case was decided 6-3, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion and Justice Samuel Alito concurring. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the courts three liberals, dissented.

What are bump stocks?

Secretly recorded conversations with Justice Alito and his wife tell us mostly that the justice worries about polarization and his wife handles the flags.

One of the hallmarks of the now–annual silly–season efforts to discredit and delegitimize the Supreme Court is that the hit jobs are aimed to make up in volume what they lack in content. So long as there is a constant drumbeat of new stories, the narrative can be kept alive even as one story after another crumbles.

A liberal activist secretly recorded Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., suggesting the latter revealed bias.

Lauren Windsor recorded the two justices at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner last week.

In one exchange with Justice Alito, posing as a conservative, she said the country needed to return to “a place of godliness.”

“I agree with you. I agree with you,” Justice Alito responded.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said the political rift between the left and the right would be extremely difficult to repair and that one side was “going to win,” according to secretly recorded comments at a private event earlier this month.

Lauren Windsor, who describes herself as a documentarian and journalist, shared recordings of two encounters with Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts at an annual event held by the Supreme Court Historical Society on June 3. She said she posed as a religious conservative and held discussions with both men.

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in a secret recording made public on Monday by a liberal activist can be heard agreeing with the sentiment that the U.S. should return "to a place of godliness."

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the recording that activist Lauren Windsor posted on social media and provided to the media outlet Rolling Stone.

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court declined to comment. A Rolling Stone spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Justice Samuel Alito spoke candidly about the ideological battle between the left and the right — discussing the difficulty of living “peacefully” with ideological opponents in the face of “fundamental” differences that “can’t be compromised.” He endorsed what his interlocutor described as a necessary fight to “return our country to a place of godliness.” And Alito offered a blunt assessment of how America’s polarization will ultimately be resolved: “One side or the other is going to win.”

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is facing increased pressure after his former neighbor has contested his version of the Stop The Steal flag controversy.

On Wednesday, Emily Baden gave her first TV interview about the bitter dispute she had with Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Alito.

Alito has said that his wife was responsible for flying the pro-Donald Trump flag in reaction to a public argument with their neighbor Baden, who is a Democrat.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday rejected a meeting request from Democratic lawmakers who wanted to discuss two provocative flags hoisted at Justice Samuel Alito’s properties.

“Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances,” Roberts wrote in a letter released by the Supreme Court.