The Trump administration’s ban on bump stocks, devices that increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic firearms, is likely lawful, a divided Tenth Circuit held Thursday, rejecting a request to temporarily lift the ban.
Federal regulators properly interpreted a machine gun-related provision of the National Firearms Act to ban the devices, a majority of the federal appeals court held.
Bump stocks replace a rifle’s standard stock and allow users to shoot more than one shot per pull of the trigger by harnessing the gun’s recoil energy to rapidly move the firearm back and forth, bumping the shooter’s stationary finger against the moving trigger.