In the late 1920's and 30's, the criminal element in the U.S. found a very effective weapon to use against law enforcement (and citizens) - the machine gun. Congress realized that this could not be allowed to continue. In 1934, a law was passed to place an excise tax and registration requirement on machine guns. Since most Americans could not qualify for registration, the law, in effect, outlawed machine guns - and the country was safer.
But gun nuts are an ingenious lot, and over the years they came up with devices that would turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun - allowing it to fire hundreds of rounds a minute with a single press of the trigger. In 1986, Congress again acted. They outlawed the modifications that turned a semi-automatic into a machine gun.
The came the invention of the "bump stock" - which again allowed a gun to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute with a single press of the trigger. And that resulted in the largest mass shooting tragedy in U.S. history.
On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people[a] and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867.
Responding to that, The ATF, during the Trump administration, said the bump stock qualified as one of the outlawed devices under the law, and they outlawed them. It was a reasonable decision, and necessary to protect the lives of innocent civilians.
But a gun owner and licensed dealer in Texas didn't like the ban on bump stocks. He filed suit in federal court.
ON Friday, the Supreme Court issued a decision. They ruled that, on a technical point, the bump stock did not actually make a semi-automatic weapon a machine gun - and they overturned the ban. They were wrong!. Using a bump stock, in effect, does allow a weapon to fire as a machine gun!
Justice Sotomayor disagrees with the majority. She wrote:
"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."
In other words, any device that makes a gun act like a machine gun has effectively turned that weapon into a machine gun.
The Supreme Court has just legalized the possession and use of machine guns in this country!
We already have loopholes in our background check law that allows anyone (even criminals) to purchase any kind of weapon they want. Now they will be able to weapon into a machine gun. That will cause the deaths of many thousands of innocent Americans (and law enforcement officers). And the 600 or so mass shootings each year will become even larger mass casualty events.
Don't expect the congressional Republicans to help rectify this terrible court decision.