WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice formally submitted a regulation on Saturday to ban “bump stocks,” a modification to high-capacity rifles that lets them fire like an automatic weapon. </s> WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday issued a new rule banning bump stocks, the attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire in sustained, rapid bursts and that a gunman used to massacre 58 people and wound hundreds of others at a Las Vegas concert in October 2017.

The new regulation, which had been expected, would ban the sale or possession of the devices under a new interpretation of existing law. Americans who own bump stocks would have 90 days to destroy their devices or to turn them in to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Justice Department said A.T.F. would post destruction instructions on its website.

Bump stocks work by harnessing a firearm’s recoil energy to slide it back and forth to bump against a squeezed trigger, so that it keeps firing without any need for the shooter to pull the trigger again. The Justice Department said that this function transforms semiautomatic weapons, like assault rifles styled on the AR-15, into fully automatic machine guns, which Congress sharply restricted in 1986 — allowing the ban. </s> The US Justice Department moved Saturday to redefine machineguns to include "bump stocks," a regulatory tweak that would ban devices used to boost the rate of fire of semi-automatic weapons.

The proposed change must undergo a review but if approved would outlaw the possession, sale or manufacture of bump stocks under the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act.

The devices were used to devastating effect by the gunman who rained fire on concert-goers in Las Vegas October 1, killing 58 people and injuring more than 850.

After the February 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people, President Donald Trump called for a ban on bump stocks even though the semi-automatic rifle used in that case was not fitted with the device.

The outrage over the Florida shooting, however, has raised public pressure for broad action on the availability of semi-automatic weapons.

Students who survived the attack are organizing a massive march on Washington in two weeks to demand stricter curbs on guns.

The president "is absolutely committed to ensuring the safety and security of every American and he has directed us to propose a regulation addressing bump stocks," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

"To that end, the Department of Justice has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a notice of a proposed regulation to clarify that the National Firearms and Gun Control Act defines 'machinegun' to include bump stock type devices." </s> Justice Department moves to officially ban bump stocks, classifies them as ‘machine guns’

The Department of Justice on Saturday submitted regulation to formally ban the devices, which modify semi-automatic rifles to fire like a fully-automatic rifle. The devices were used in the Las Vegas massacre last October, which left nearly five dozen dead and more than 800 others injured.

The DOJ announced Saturday it had submitted its proposed regulation to the Office of Management and Budget, which must approve the regulation before it is enforced, according to Reuters.

The proposed regulation defines bump stocks as “machine guns” and seeks to have them outlawed under the National Firearms Act and Gun Control Act. If the regulation is approved, bump stocks will be illegal to buy, sell, possess and manufacture.

The regulation does not need congressional approval and was expected after President Donald Trump directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ban the devices last month.

However, it reverses a 2010 decision by the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that found bump stocks did not fall under the National Firearm Act’s definition of a “machine gun” and therefore could only be regulated if Congress amended the NFAGCA’s definition of “machine gun.”. – READ MORE </s> • The Department of Justice on Friday announced a proposal to ban bump stocks – the devices used in last year’s Las Vegas massacre.
• Bump stocks are devices that can be installed onto semiautomatic rifles, accelerating the gunfire.
• President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed the Obama administration for a 2010 ruling that found that bump stocks weren’t technically “machineguns” and therefore couldn’t be banned.

The Trump administration announced a new proposal on Friday to effectively ban bump stock devices, which were used to accelerate the gunfire of the Las Vegas mass shooter last year.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement that the Justice Department intends to amend a regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to ensure that bump stocks fall under the definition of a “machinegun” under federal law, thereby banning the devices.

“After the senseless attack in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress,” Sessions said in a statement.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the decision on Twitter, blaming the Obama administration’s ATF for ruling in 2010 that bump stocks didn’t fall under the “machinegun” definition.

“Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period,” Trump tweeted Friday afternoon. “We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”

The Justice Department’s statement on Friday also indicated that if the proposal is adopted, people who currently own bump stocks would have to give them up or destroy them.

“If the [notice of proposed rulemaking] is made final, bump-stock-type devices would be effectively banned under federal law and current possessors of bump-stock-type devices would be required to surrender, destroy, or otherwise render the devices permanently inoperable,” the statement said.

A bump stock is a device meant to be installed onto a semiautomatic firearm, such as AR-15, AK-47, and Saiga models, replacing the rifle’s standard stock.

Unlike automatic firearms, which fire continuously while the trigger is pulled, semiautomatic weapons fire one round per trigger pull. But the bump stock harnesses the recoil energy produced when a shot is fired from a semiautomatic rifle to “bump” the weapon back and forth between the shooter’s shoulder and trigger finger.

Since the shooter is still pulling the trigger for each shot, federal officials previously argued that the firearm technically remains semiautomatic, even as it achieves a rate of fire similar to that of an automatic one.

It’s unclear how the Justice Department is justifying the regulation change, as firearms outfitted with bump stocks still require multiple trigger pulls. But Sessions’ statement on Friday said that bump stocks “allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger.”

The Trump administration has been reviewing the legality of bump stocks since December 2017.

Shortly after a mass shooting at a Florida high school on February 14 this year, Trump issued a memorandum directing the Justice Department to craft a rule that would ban the devices. </s> The Justice Department is proposing rule changes that will effectively ban bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like a machine gun, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Friday.

"After the senseless attack in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress," Sessions said in a statement.

Sessions has been a defender of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms.

Gunman Stephen Paddock used a bump stock in a massacre last October that killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others at a music festival in Las Vegas.

Authorities said Paddock’s ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute over a 10-minute period from his 32nd-floor hotel suite was a major factor in the high casualty count.

In February, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum directing the Justice Department to make the regulatory change.

"As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period," Trump said on Twitter as the announcement was made. "We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns."

The National Rifle Association, the most powerful U.S. gun lobby, supported more regulation of bump stocks but has not endorsed Trump's ban and said previously it was awaiting the publication of the regulation before rendering judgment.

The Justice Department announcement comes as hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to rally nationwide on Saturday for tighter gun laws in "March For Our Lives" protests led by survivors of the Florida school massacre, which reiginited the debate over Americans' access to guns.

Students from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 students and staff were killed on Feb. 14 will be among the 500,000 people who organizers say could rally on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol in Washington. </s> Days after yet another mass shooting sparked a nationwide debate on gun control and an immediate response from lawmakers, President Trump took action.

The president said he signed an order on Feb. 20 directing the Justice Department to ban "bump stocks" and other gun modifiers that make semi-automatic firearms fire faster.

"We must move past clichés and tired debates and focus on evidence-based solutions and security measures that actually work," Trump said during a ceremony to honor the 17 victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

A month later, Trump confirmed the Justice Department is forging ahead with his plan to ban rapid-fire bump stocks.

“Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period. We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns,” he explained in a tweet on March 23.

Here's what you need to know about bump stocks, the devices involved in last year's Las Vegas shooting.

How do they work?

A bump stock is an attachment that allows a semi-automatic rifle to mimic a fully automatic weapon's "cyclic firing rate to mimic nearly continuous automatic fire," according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks could fire hundreds of rounds per minute, according to experts.

Yes. The ATF gave its seal of approval under the Obama administration in 2010.

At the time, the bureau concluded bump stocks didn't convert a semi-automatic firearm into one that is fully automatic, meaning it was not equivalent to machine guns that are regulated under the National Firearms Act, which dates back to the 1930s.

Bump stocks are currently legal under federal law. However, it is illegal for U.S. citizens to own fully automatic firearms produced after May 19, 1986, The New York Times reported.

“The classification of these devices depends on whether they mechanically alter the function of the firearm to fire fully automatic,” Jill Snyder, a special agent in charge at the ATF, told The Times. “Bump-fire stocks, while simulating automatic fire, do not actually alter the firearm to fire automatically, making them legal under current federal law.”

But since the Las Vegas shooting, states and cities have increasingly pushed for legislation to ban the devices.

Massachusetts became the first state to pass legislation banning the device after the October incident. The state law, which went into effect Feb. 1, prohibits possession of the device under all circumstances. It also bans the possession of trigger cranks.

New Jersey, as well as large cities such as Denver and Columbia, South Carolina, also have enacted laws prohibiting the sale and possession of bump stocks.

California law already prohibited the sale of bump stocks.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) even called for an immediate review of bump stocks after the Vegas shooting.

"The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations," the NRA said in a statement in October.

What other actions has Trump taken?

Trump assured Americans that something would be done about bump stocks very quickly.

"I'm writing that out myself. I don't care if Congress does it or not," he said on Feb. 26. "You put it into the machine gun category, which is what it is, it becomes, essentially, a machine gun, and nobody is going to be able to -- it's going to very hard to get them."

On March 23, Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill, which includes several policy changes aimed at curbing gun violence, including the so-called "Fix NICS" measure to strengthen the background check system.

The measure to fix the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) provides additional funding to agencies and states that comply with the system. Those that do not, will be penalized.

More than $2 billion is also allocated to train school officials and law enforcement officers to identify signs of potential threats. This money would also be used to install metal detectors.

Another main action Trump has taken on guns has been to sign a resolution blocking an Obama-era background check rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of certain mentally disabled people.

Obama's rule, which affected an estimated 75,000 people, required the Social Security Administration to forward to the Justice Department the names of certain disabled beneficiaries to be added to an FBI database of individuals ineligible to purchase a firearm.

Fox News' Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Lucia I. Suarez Sang and The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> The Justice Department announced Tuesday that bump stocks have been banned. The controversial handgun accessory, which allows shooters to fire bullets from semi-automatic weapons faster than would normally be possible, drew national scrutiny after they were used to kill 59 people in Las Vegas in 2017. Under the new ruling from the Trump administration, bump stocks will be illegal to possess 90 days from when the regulation is formally published, which CNN reports will likely be Friday.

In announcing the new policy, the Justice Department said that because bump stocks "allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger," they qualify as "machineguns" — which are illegal — under existing law.

"A semiautomatic firearm to which a bump-stock-type device is attached is able to produce automatic fire with a single pull of the trigger," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of the DOJ, wrote in its new ruling. "With limited exceptions, the Gun Control Act [of 1968] makes it unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun unless it was lawfully possessed prior to the effective date of the statute. The bumpstock-type devices covered by this final rule were not in existence prior to the effective date of the statute, and therefore will be prohibited when this rule becomes effective."

Owners of bump stocks will have 90 days from when the regulation is published in the federal register — probably Friday, according to CNN — to either turn in their bump stocks to a local ATF office or destroy them. The ban could be subject to legal action from gun rights organizations, which have long warned against the specter of the federal government forcing Americans to hand over their firearms; however, no such action has yet been announced.

In a statement to Bustle, the National Rifle Association said it was "disappointed" in the ruling and suggested that it was unfair to Americans who had already bought bump stocks.

"We are disappointed that this final rule fails to address the thousands of law-abiding Americans who relied on prior ATF determinations when lawfully acquiring these device," the NRA said in its statement. "As we recommended to ATF in our comments on the proposed rule, Congress made it possible for the Attorney General to provide amnesty for firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act. The Attorney General should have exercised that authority to provide a period of amnesty under this rule.”

After the Las Vegas shooting, the NRA said in a a statement that "devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations," and called on the Justice Department to "immediately review whether [bump stocks] comply with federal law." However, it didn't call for them to be banned entirely.

President Trump announced his intent to ban bump stocks earlier in the year, and in March, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a proposed rule similar to the one that was unveiled on Tuesday.

The final regulation was signed by Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Sessions' former chief of staff. Whitaker assumed office without Senate confirmation after Sessions resigned in November; many legal experts have argued that this was unconstitutional, and there are several lawsuits challenging the legality of Whitaker's appointment and office-holding. </s> President Donald Trump announced Friday that the administration would ban bump stocks and “all devices” that turn otherwise legal weapons into “illegal machine guns,” keeping a promise made amid a bipartisan gun control debate.

Moments before he departed Joint Base Andrews for his Florida property at Mar-a-Lago, and hours after signing a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill, the president tweeted about the new policy.

“Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period. We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns,” he wrote on Friday.

A bump stock is an attachment that allows a semi-automatic rifle to achieve a fully automatic weapon’s “cyclic firing rate to mimic nearly continuous automatic fire,” according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks can fire hundreds of rounds per minute, according to experts.

The bump stock moved to the foreground in the national discussion of gun control last fall, after Stephen Paddock used the attachment when he opened fire at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. He killed 58 people and injured hundreds more.

The president, for months, has urged the Justice Department to ban firearm modifiers, directing Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month to implement new federal guidelines “very soon.”

On Friday, Sessions announced that bump stocks fall within the definition of “machine gun” under federal law, as the devices allow a semiautomatic firearms to achieve a continuous firing cycle with the single pull of the trigger.

WHAT ARE BUMP STOCKS? HOW THEY WORK AND WHY TRUMP WANTS THEM BANNED

“Since the day he took office, President Trump has had no higher priority than the safety of each and every American,” Sessions said in a statement. “That is why today the Department of Justice is publishing for public comment a proposed rulemaking that would define ‘machine gun’ to include bump stock-type devices under federal law – effectively banning them.”

Sessions cited the “senseless” Las Vegas attack, noting that the rule is a “critical step” in the effort to reduce the threat of gun violence.

The White House released a memo last month that directed the Justice Department to propose the rule.

Trump wrote in the memo, “Although the Obama administration repeatedly concluded that particular bump stock type devices were lawful to purchase and possess, I sought further clarification of the law restricting fully automatic machine guns.”

The ATF made bump stocks legal in 2010, when, at the time, the bureau concluded that bump stocks didn’t convert a semi-automatic firearm into one that is fully automatic, meaning it was not equivalent to machine guns that are regulated under the National Firearms Act, which dates back to the 1930s.

Since the shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school last month, the president has proposed numerous measures in the gun control debate, including banning bump stocks, arming and training teachers and school officials, and raising the age requirement to purchase a gun from 18 to 21.

The president, though, has touched off tensions with the National Rifle Association, which endorsed him during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump has said, repeatedly, that he and the NRA “don’t have to agree on everything.”
The U.S. Department of Justice submits a regulation to ban bump stocks, a modification to semi-automatic guns that allows the user to fire at a faster rate.