Washington, D.C. – Today Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01), a member of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, released the following statement after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Garland v. Cargill.

“I am appalled at the Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate the years-long ban on bump stock devices.” said Rep. Dina Titus. “In siding with a far-fetched challenge to the ATF rule, conservatives on the Court are allowing these destructive devices to return to our streets. This ruling hits home for many communities that have been impacted by gun violence caused by rapid fire gun accessories, including District One. To this day, the Route 91 massacre in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Let me be clear that the level of carnage we saw was enabled by bump stocks.”

“This is a setback, to say the very least, for an issue especially close to my district, but I will never stop fighting to keep these devices away from our communities. Congress must pass my Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act to codify the ATF ruling, legislatively treat bump stocks as machine guns, and ban them once and for all.”

Background

Bump stocks affix to assault rifles and generate automatic fire with a single trigger pull, allowing a shooter to fire at a rate of 400 to 800 rounds per minute. These devices were used to carry out the Route 91 Festival shooting in Las Vegas, NV, on October 1, 2017. This act of gun violence remains the deadliest mass shooting in our nation’s history, killing 58 individuals.

Following this deadly day in U.S. history, pressure to ban bump stocks intensified. In 2018, ATF moved to classify bump stocks as illegal under existing federal law, and in 2019 bump stocks were banned for civilian use.

After the 2018 ATF rulemaking, a split among federal appeals courts prompted the Supreme Court to hear the case, with oral arguments taking place in February of this year. Today, in a 6-3 decision, the conservative Justices on the Court gutted the bump stock ban.

Given these high stakes, Rep. Titus sent a letter to Republican leadership in March 2024 signed by 62 members of Congress urging Speaker Johnson to bring her bipartisan Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act of 2023 to the floor for a vote. The bipartisan Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act would legislatively ban bump stocks and limit the industry’s ability to use supplemental devices to loophole their way around existing gun laws, making it generally illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess bump stocks. It currently has 135 co-sponsors.

Rep. Titus also sent a letter to congressional leadership in October 2022 pressing for a vote on the commonsense bipartisan bill. The legislation passed the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis in May 2022 as part of the Protecting Our Kids Act following a series of mass shootings but was not taken up by the Senate as part of a broader bipartisan deal.

The Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act can be found HERE. It is supported by Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety, Brady: United Against Gun Violence, and the Newtown Action Alliance.

###