© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A bump fire stock that attaches to a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firing rate is seen at Good Guys Gun Shop in Orem, Utah, U.S., October 4, 2017. REUTERS/George Frey/File Photo - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday trained its sights once again on gun rights, agreeing to decide the legality of a federal ban imposed under former President Donald Trump on"bump stock" devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire like machine guns.
Federal law prohibits the sale or possession of machine guns, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Machine guns are defined under a 1934 law called the National Firearms Act as weapons that can"automatically" fire more than one shot"by a single function of the trigger." After a gunman used weapons outfitted with bump stocks in a 2017 shooting spree at a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more, Trump's administration took action to prohibit the devices.