Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Appeals court allows Utah man to keep his bump stock for now

Bump Stock

Rick Bowmer / AP

In this Oct. 4, 2017, photo, a device called a “bump stock” is attached to a semi-automatic rifle at the Gun Vault store and shooting range in South Jordan, Utah.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah gun rights advocate can keep his bump stock, at least for now, as he sues over the Trump administration's ban on the attachment that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns.

The temporary stay handed down Thursday by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals applies only to Clark Aposhian.

He sued over the ban in January, arguing it was unconstitutional to reclassify the devices to make them illegal under federal laws that prohibit machine guns.

The regulation gives U.S. gun owners until next week to turn in or destroy the devices.

Bump stocks entered the gun control debate in October 2017, after a gunman used them to kill 58 Las Vegas concert goers in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.