Bump Stock Ban Circuit Split Puts Its Enforcers in a Tough Spot

It wasn’t until a Las Vegas shooter killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others in just minutes on Oct. 1, 2017, that anyone—including the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—seemed to care about bump stocks.

There was no general bump stock ban then, and the agency had actually approved specific models so long as the feature enabling a gun to shoot multiple rounds on a single trigger pull wasn’t “automatic.”

Bump stocks aren’t used for target practice, self defense, or sport, said South Texas College of Law professor Dru Stevenson. When affixed to a semi-automatic rifle, ...