Supreme Court bump stock decision hurls gun rights back into spotlight

The Supreme Court’s decision invalidating the nationwide bump stock ban ignited a firestorm among Democrats and gun control groups that have long maligned the device used to perpetrate the nation’s deadliest mass shooting. 

The groups expressed worry about not only the impacts of lifting the ban, which could trigger a booming rapid-fire marketplace, but also the other gun cases that remain pending on the justices’ docket. 

Republicans and gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA), meanwhile, celebrated Friday’s decision as a necessary pull-back on firearm restrictions and executive-branch overreach. 

“The Supreme Court has properly restrained executive branch agencies to their role of enforcing, and not making, the law. This decision will be pivotal to NRA’s future challenges of ATF regulations,” Randy Kozuch, the executive director of the group’s lobbying arm, said in a statement.