Bump-Stock Ban Questioned by US Supreme Court in Gun Clash (1)

The US Supreme Court weighed dealing a fresh blow to gun regulations as the justices questioned the federal ban on bump stocks, attachments that let a semiautomatic rifle fire at speeds comparable to a machine gun.

Hearing arguments in Washington Wednesday, the court suggested it will divide over a criminal prohibition former President Donald Trump’s administration put in place after the 2017 Las Vegas concert massacre, when a man using bump stocks killed 60 people. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

Justice Elena Kagan said bump stocks let shooters easily fire “a torrent of bullets,” putting the devices “in the heartland” of what Congress was seeking to prohibit when it outlawed machine guns in 1986.

But the court’s conservative majority had a more mixed reaction, leaving the likely outcome unclear. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the ban would “ensnare a lot of people who are not aware…