TV (Gray TV): CAC’s Becker-Cohen Joins Gray TV to Discuss Bump Stock Case at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – In 2017, a gunman opened fire on a Las Vegas music festival, killing 60 and wounding 413 others.
It remains deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history.
The unprecedented carnage count was largely due to bump-stocks – a rifle attachment that allowed the shooter to fire 90 rounds every 10 seconds.
Following the tragedy, the Trump Administration issued a regulation banning bump-stocks.
Now that decision is at the Supreme Court.
“This looks like a gun control case if you look at it quickly,” said Tim Rosenberger of the Manhattan Institute “But that’s not really the point.”
He fears that the government penalizing people who own once-legal bump-stocks will become a slippery slope for other regulations.
“If unelected agencies can just pick new definitions of things that that’s sort of a big problem,” said Rosenberger. “It goes way beyond gun control – and if we fixate on the gun control issue, because that’s something that’s so politically divided in the US, we lose sight of the bigger problem here.”
On the other side, Miriam Becker-Cohen with the Constitutional Accountability Center believes it is about the guns.
“This case is fundamentally about whether a common sense regulation is designed to save people’s lives can be invalidated by the multimillion dollar gun industry,” said Becker-Cohen.
Both agree – any decision in this case comes with major consequences.
“You sort of fear that it’s going to jump out of firearm regulation,” said Rosenberger.
“I mean, literally, lives are on the line,” said Becker-Cohen.
Justices will hear oral arguments on Wednesday, with a decision expected by the end of Spring.