A U.S. appeals court on Friday struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, devices that can be added to semi-automatic weapons to increase their firing rate.
The ban was enacted in 2018 after a gunman used weapons with bump stocks to kill 58 people and injure at least 850 more in a shooting in Las Vegas in October 2017.
“A plain reading of the statutory language, paired with close consideration of the mechanics of a semi-automatic firearm, reveals that a bump stock is excluded from the technical definition of ‘machinegun’ set forth in the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act,” the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.
A federal ban on machine guns applies to weapons that fire more than one shot “automatically” with a single function of the trigger. Opponents of the ban argued the trigger functions multiple times when a bump stock is used, which would mean bump stocks are not considered machine guns under federal law.
The court found that a non-mechanical bump stock is not “self-acting” and is not automatic because it requires a specific technique from the shooter.
The decision will not have an immediate effect on the ban as the case returns to the lower court, which will determine how to proceed, according to the Associated Press.
The ban previously survived challenges in several other courts, including the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, the federal circuit court in Washington, and the Tenth Circuit in Denver, the report notes.
A panel of three judges on the Fifth Circuit previously refused to toss out the ban. However, the full court decided to reconsider the decision last year.