WASHINGTON--A U.S. appeals court on Monday refused to halt President Donald Trump's ban on "bump stocks" - rapid-fire gun attachments used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history - in the latest courtroom defeat for firearms rights advocates opposing the policy.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that denied a request by opponents of the policy for a preliminary injunction lifting the ban, which took effect last week. The U.S. Supreme Court twice last week, in cases from Michigan and Washington, D.C., rejected stay requests from gun rights advocates.
The policy was embraced by Trump in the wake of an October 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas. It requires owners to turn in or destroy the attachments. People caught in possession of them could face up to 10 years in prison.
The appeals court previously carved out a temporary exception to the ban for members of the Firearms Policy Foundation and other organizations pursuing the legal challenge. In Monday's decision, the court said it would extend that temporary reprieve for two days to allow the plaintiffs to seek a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We are reviewing the decision and will be seeking a stay from the Supreme Court, within the time contemplated by the D.C. Circuit," said Erik Jaffe, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Bump stocks use a gun's recoil to bump its trigger, enabling a semiautomatic weapon to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which can transform it into a machine gun. The ban is a rare recent instance of gun control at the federal level in a country that has experienced a succession of mass shootings.
