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Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear arguments over a ban on bump stocks that initially went into effect under former President Donald Trump. The court decided not to hear two cases attempting to lift the ban on the alterations to semi-automatic weapons.
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The Trump administration enacted a ban on bump stocks following the 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert that left 58 people dead and hundreds more injured. At the time, all gun owners were required to destroy the devices or turn them over to authorities.
A U.S appeals court ruling in December left the bump stock ban intact. The 8-8 tie, which came in Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit, upheld the ruling of a lower court judge from 2019.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives approved of the ban following the Las Vegas shooting by changing the definition of machine gun to include the device.
The cases the Supreme Court declined to hear concern whether the Trump administration exceeded its authority under an existing law concerning the regulation of machine guns.
Aposhian vs. Garland and Gun Owners of America vs. Garland both challenged the power law enforcement agencies have to create regulations when the law those rules are based on is unclear.
The New Civil Liberties Union, which had asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court's ruling to uphold bump stock bans in Aposhian vs. Garland, said that the case now returns to trial for litigation.
"We look forward to arguing in the trial court that the bump stock ban is inconsistent with the statutory definition of a 'machine gun,'" Rich Samp, senior litigation counsel at NCLA, said in a statement.
Bump stocks increase a gun's rate of fire by using the recoil to have the gun fire continuously, nearly converting a semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic machine gun.
With a bump stock, some guns can fire between 400 and 500 rounds per minute.
