The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday over whether the federal government can ban devices known as “bump stocks” that allow semi-automatic rifles to act more like a machine gun.
The case doesn’t directly involve Second Amendment rights to possess firearms. Instead, it hinges on whether bump stocks meet the definition of machine guns, which are banned under a statute Congress last addressed in the 1980s.
Several bipartisan groups of lawmakers had tried to ban the devices in 2017, after authorities said a shooter had several of them on guns when he killed more than 50 people at a Las Vegas music festival. But those bills faced opposition from gun rights groups and neither chamber voted on them.
