Lawmakers from Nevada reintroduce legislation banning bump stocks

Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto speaks during Brightline West's groundbreaking ceremony Monday, April 22, 2024. Photo by: Wade Vandervort

U.S Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., has reintroduced bipartisan legislation that would ban bump stocks, the devices used during the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Strip.

“It’s been nearly eight years since the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival massacre changed my hometown forever,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “Bump stocks like the one used by the shooter have no place in our communities. I will never forget the events of October 1, 2017, and will never stop fighting to permanently ban these dangerous devices.”

The Las Vegas tragedy was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, immediately killing 58 and injuring hundreds.

The Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts (BUMP) Act would prohibit the sale of bump stocks and other devices or weapon modifications that allow semi-automatic firearms to increase their rate of fire, enabling them to effectively function as fully automatic weapons.

The legislation would also amend the Internal Revenue Code to add semi-automatic firearms to the list of weapons regulated under the National Firearms Act.

This effort follows the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in June 2024 that struck down the 2018 federal ban on bump stocks. That original ban had been implemented at the urging of then-President Donald Trump following both the 2017 Las Vegas shooting and the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla, which resulted in 17 deaths.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined Justice Clarence Thomas and fellow conservative justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in overturning the ban. In the majority opinion, Thomas wrote that a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock does not qualify as an illegal machine gun because it doesn’t fire multiple shots with a single trigger pull, according to the Associated Press.

Bump stocks replace the standard stock on semi-automatic assault rifles and AK-style weapons. They utilize the firearm’s recoil energy to accelerate the rate of fire up to hundreds of rounds per minute.

“Young people across the country have made it clear: weapons of war and their deadly accessories have no place in our communities,” said March For Our Lives, a student-led organization advocating for gun control legislation. “The BUMP Act is a necessary step to stop the spread of bump stocks and similar devices that turn firearms into tools of mass destruction.”

U.S. Dina Titus, D-Nev., Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Dan Kildee D-Mich., again put forward similar legislation in the House, called the Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act. 

“Nearly eight years after the Harvest Festival massacre we still do not have a federal law banning these deadly devices,” Titus said in a statement. “Bump stocks continue to pose a threat to innocent lives and Congress must act. Without a federal law firmly banning them, federal regulations and court rulings could allow bump stocks on our streets and in our neighborhoods, raising the risk of more mass shootings.”