The Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to put on hold the Trump administration’s ban on bump stocks. One of the justices indicated, however, that the court will observe how lower courts handle the issue and may pick it up later.
President Donald Trump ordered the ban on Feb. 20, 2018, asking the attorney general to outlaw devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire rapidly like machine guns, which are mostly illegal for civilians. A bump stock harnesses a semi-automatic rifle’s recoil force to allow it to achieve a fire rate nearly equivalent to that of an automatic rifle.