- Term
- 2023-2024
Garland v. Cargill
In Garland v. Cargill, the Supreme Court considered whether to weaken gun violence prevention laws. Here, the Court considered whether bump stock devices can be limited by the federal government under the long-standing rules barring machine guns. Bump stocks are designed to convert rifles into devices that operate akin to machine guns — weapons that automatically fire more than one shot from a single press of the trigger. In 2017, a gunman used rifles modified with bump stocks to kill 61 people and wound more than 400 others attending a concert in Las Vegas in just 10 minutes and with just 12 prolonged bursts of gunfire.
On June 14, 2024 in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority struck down the federal government’s ban on bump stocks — effectively rewriting a statute and enabling more mass shootings.
