Getty ImagesUS Supreme Court justices grappled with the mechanics of bump stocks on Wednesday as they weighed whether to lift a ban on the gun accessory.
Fitting a bump stock to a rifle enables the weapon to fire hundreds of bullets per minute.
The Trump administration banned the devices by classifying them as machine guns after they were used in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
Under the 1986 National Firearms Act, owning a machine gun is illegal.
But a Texas resident and gun shop owner Michael Cargill has challenged the ban on bump stocks, saying the government has interpreted what qualifies as a machine gun too broadly.
The case has now reached America’s highest court.
It is illegal to modify the internal components of semi-automatic rifles – which typically manage about 60 aimed shots per minute – to make them fully automatic,…
