In USA the poor regulation of firearms control It is normally promoted after large massacres that shock the country. This is what happened months after the brutal shooting in 2017 at a concert in Las Vegas, which with 60 dead and more than 400 injured has remained the most lethal in the history of the country, the government then chaired by donald trump approved a veto on bump stockss like the ones the perpetrator of the massacre had used, an accessory that allows a semi-automatic rifle to fire at the speed of a submachine gun hundreds of bullets per minute. This Friday The US Supreme Court has overturned that veto.
The six judges from the conservative majority They have made the decision with the opposition of the three progressive judges. And they have considered that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority by forcing anyone who had that accessory to destroy it or hand it over to federal authorities, imposing prison sentences for those who sold them or kept them in their possession.
His sentence is a setback for those who advocate for greater gun control and overthrows one of the few federal regulations achieved in recent years to combat the epidemic of violence with firearms, an effort that in Congress is practically paralyzed, especially due to the unwavering commitment of the republicans with the staunch defense of the Second Amendment and under the weight of weapons wolf. .
Machine gun
The lawsuit that led to the decision was filed by Michael Cargill, an Army veteran who owns a gun store in Austin, Texas, who filed it on the same day he delivered several of the accelerators. The federal regulations initially even had the unusual support from the National Rifle Associationwhich joined the calls for restrictions after the public commotion over what happened in Las Vegas, where the perpetrator of the massacre shot more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition over 10 minutes.
According to the conservative justices’ opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the ATF had no authority to implement the veto. Their arguments are above all technicians and the magistrate has written that a semi-automatic rifle with the now reauthorized accessory is not a submachine gun because does not fire more than one shot each time the trigger is pulled. That is the technical condition contemplated by a 1986 law that prohibited the possession of submachine guns by civilians.
The progressive minorityin a dissenting opinion signed by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, has denounced that the decision will “deadly consequences” and has called her “shortsighted.” The judge has accused the conservatives of having artificially narrowed the statutes and thereby limited the government’s efforts to prevent massacres with firearms. “When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck I call that bird a duck.”, Sotomayor has written.
