Some states are beginning to see legal challenges to the Trump administration’s rule banning bump stocks, after March 26.
The President pushed for the ban in the wake of a 2017 mass-shooting in Las Vegas, in which the shooter used bump stocks attached to semi-automatic rifles to spray a crowd of concertgoers from a hotel room several stories above.
The shooting killed almost five dozen people and wounded several others.
The administration achieved the ban by using rulemaking authority to place bump stocks in the same legal category as a machine gun, as defined by the federal Gun Control Act. The rule further orders (see paragraph V, page 30) anyone who has a bump stock to destroy it or turn over to the AFT by March 26th.
But as the deadline looms, legal challenges from groups who question the ban’s constitutionality.
Local lawyer Robert Heil, III tells 6 Investigates lawsuits in Michigan and Utah seek to challenge 1) whether the order to turn in the bump stocks violates the Constitutional requirement that the government compensates people for ordering them to hand over their personal property. And, 2) whether the ban – which was ordered by the President – usurps the power of the Congress to write laws.
However, Heil warns that no matter the legal questions, the ban will still take effect on March 26th and those who scoff at it could be charged with felony weapons possession if caught with a bump stock in their possession.
For specifics on how to destroy or abandon a bump stock, click here.
