The Trump administration just proposed banning bump stocks

A rifle equipped with a bump stock
(Image credit: George Frey/Getty Images)

The Department of Justice on Saturday posted a notice of a regulatory proposal to ban bump stocks, the modification for semi-automatic weapons that permitted the Las Vegas attacker to shoot about 500 people in 10 minutes in October. The DOJ seeks to change the legal "definition of 'machinegun' in the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act [to include] bump stock type devices," which would effect a ban.

That change would also reverse an Obama-era determination of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that bump stocks do not fit the machine gun definition and thus cannot be prohibited without new legislation from Congress. Some ATF officials believe that 2010 decision was correct and the Trump administration does not have legal authority to proceed with this ban, the Chicago Tribune reports.

"President Trump is absolutely committed to ensuring the safety and security of every American," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in the DOJ notice, "and he has directed us to propose a regulation addressing bump stocks." Trump has supported a variety of new gun control measures in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, but his allies and critics alike remain uncertain about the reliability of his stance.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.