Senate Republicans block effort by Democrats to bring back Trump-era bump stock ban after hot-button Supreme Court decision

Senate Republicans blocked quick passage of a bill that would have reinstated the Trump-era ban on bump stocks. 

The Supreme Court overturned the ban last week, giving Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer an opportunity to force Republicans to object to legislation that would have outlawed the gun attachment that was used in the deadliest mass shooting in history. 

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., asked for unanimous consent of the Senate to pass the bill, but Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., objected, killing the effort. 

Schumer could bring the measure back up as a roll call vote, forcing every senator to go on record with a yes-or-no vote.  

A bump fire stock, (R), that attaches to a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firing rate

Bump stocks allow gun owners to turn a semi-automatic weapon into a firearm capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute. 

'As a firearms owner myself, there's no legitimate use for a bump stock – not for self defense, not in a law enforcement context, not even in military applications … but what they are tailor made for is a mass shooting,' Heinrich said on the Senate floor. 

Ricketts called it a 'show vote' as he objected to quick passage of the bill. He said the bill was overreaching.  

'This bill would ban literally any item that makes a firearm easier and in some cases safer to shoot.'

'It's not really about bump stocks, this bill is about banning as many firearm accessories as possible,' he said. 'It's an unconstitutional attack on law-abiding gun owners.'

The federal ban on bump stocks was approved by former President Trump in 2017 when a gunman opened fire at a Las Vegas nightclub, and in 11 minutes killed 59 and wounded over 500. 

The administration used the federal law that prohibits machine guns to support amending federal firearm regulations, which is why the Supreme Court decision focused on machine guns in its ruling.

People who owned bump stocks were required to either surrender them to the ATF or destroy them. Multiple states also took action to ban bump stocks.

But Congress failed to act. Democratic lawmakers at the time including late Senator Dianne Feinstein warned without legislative action, the ban on bump stocks could quickly be reversed or tied up in court.

And last week she was proven right: the Supreme Court struck down the ban in a six-three decision. The conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled that bump stocks are not machine guns. 

In the case Garland v Cargill, gun owner Michael Cargill surrendered two bump stocks to the ATF following the ban but then filed a lawsuit.

A district court ruled bump stocks are in line with machine guns, but the ruling was reversed by an appeals court.

'We hold that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” because it cannot fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger,”' Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.

The federal ban on bump stocks was approved by former President Trump in 2017 when a gunman opened fire at a Las Vegas nightclub, and in 11 minutes killed 59 and wounded over 500

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., asked for unanimous consent of the Senate to pass the bill, but Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., above, objected, killing the effort

'And, even if it could, it would not do so “automatically.” ATF therefore exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a Rule that classifies bump stocks as machineguns,' he continued.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito addressed the deadly shooting in Las Vegas where a man opened fire on a music festival from his suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel.

Alito said the shooting proved Congress needed to act, but the law as written didn't allow for the ban. 

'The horrible shooting spree in Las Vegas in 2017 did not change the statutory text or its meaning. That event demonstrated that a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock can have the same lethal effect as a machinegun, and it thus strengthened the case for amending §5845(b),' he wrote.

'But an event that highlights the need to amend a law does not itself change the law’s meaning. There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns,' he went on.

Personal belongings and debris litters the Route 91 Harvest festival grounds across the street from the Mandalay Bay resort and casino in Las Vegas, on Oct. 3, 2017 after the mass shooting 

Police run toward the scene of the shooting on October 1, 2017 

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote about the horrors of the shooting and how all the gunman using bump stocks affixed to semiautomatic rifles had to do was 'pull the trigger and press the gun forward. The bump stock did the rest.'

She also 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. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires “automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”'

'Today, the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands,' Sotomayor wrote. 'To do so, it casts aside Congress's definition of "machinegun" and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose.'

Sotomayor warned the Supreme Court's decision 'will have deadly consequences.'