1. In a landmark legal victory for gun owners and Second Amendment advocates, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) suffered a major defeat when a federal court vacated its controversial pistol brace rule, as reported in recent videos by Langley Outdoors Academy and Washington Gun Law.
This ruling, delivered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and presided over by Judge Reed O’Connor, has substantial implications for the future of gun regulation in the United States.
2. The Supreme Court on Friday invalidated a federal rule enacted during the Trump administration that outlawed bump stocks, devices that greatly increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic weapons.
The 6-3 ruling found that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority when it issued the ban in 2018, following the 2017 mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest in U.S. history. Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, which split along ideological lines. Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissenting opinion from the bench.
“This case asks whether a bump stock — an accessory for a semiautomatic rifle that allows the shooter to rapidly reengage the trigger (and therefore achieve a high rate of fire) — converts the rifle into a ‘machine gun.’ We hold that it does not,” Thomas wrote for the conservative majority.