HOUSTON, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. appeals court in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Friday blocked a ban on certain types of bump stocks, which enable semi-automatic rifles to fire sustained and faster rounds that make assaults more lethal.
The full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 13:3 that bump stocks were not covered by the federal law that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that had imposed the 2018 ban.
"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," Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in the majority's opinion.
It is argued that a semi-automatic rifle usually fires 60 rounds in a minute, while with a bump stock it can fire hundreds of rounds per minute, making it no different from a fully automatic machine gun, of which private ownership is banned by the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act.
The administration of then U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out the ban on bump stocks in 2018, after the add-ons drew public attention in October 2017 when a gunman equipped his weapons with the devices and killed 58 people in a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Since then, the rule has survived several other challenges in court and the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently denied cases challenging the bump stock ban in recent years.
The Friday ruling is the latest on the issue, which is likely to be decided at the Supreme Court.
