U.S. Bans Bump Stocks, Gives Owners 90 Days to Give Them Up
U.S. Bans Bump Stocks, Gives Owners 90 Days to Give Them Up
(Bloomberg) -- Bump stocks, devices that let a semi-automatic weapon fire like a machine gun, will be banned 90 days from Friday, the Justice Department said in a rare gesture toward gun control by the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump had pledged to bar the device that became infamous after it was linked to the massacre at a Las Vegas concert on Oct. 1, 2017 that killed 58 people.
The Justice Department devised the ban by changing its interpretation of definitions in the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968. Current owners of bump stocks will have 90 days to destroy them or turn them in to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Owners won’t receive compensation for the devices.
A senior Justice Department official who briefed reporters described bump stocks as plentiful in the market, estimating there were tens of thousands.
The department’s announcement in March of a proposed ban was hailed by Trump in a tweet saying “We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Kinery in Washington at ekinery@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert, Bill Faries
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