Minnesota governor calls SCOTUS bump stock ruling "reckless"
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota leaders are speaking out on Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn a federal rule banning bump stocks, the type of device used during the country's deadliest mass shooting in 2017.
The court ruled 6-3 in favor of invalidating the rule enacted by the Trump administration in 2018, months after the Route 91 Harvest Musical Festival massacre in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and 500 more hurt.
Bump stocks can modify semi-automatic rifles, allowing them to fire hundreds of rounds a minute.
Minnesota DFL Gov. Tim Walz took to social media on Friday morning to call the ruling "reckless."
"Bump stocks were used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Bans on bump stocks are common sense, and this reversal only brings us backwards in making our streets and communities safer," Walz said.
U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, DFL-St. Paul, accused the court's "extremist majority" of endangering lives.
"Devices that turn semi-automatic guns into weapons of war have no place in our communities," McCollum wrote on X/Twitter. "Republicans must allow the House to vote on (Las Vegas' Democratic Rep. Dina Titusbill's) bill to close the bump stock loophole."
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called the decision "stunning," adding he had urged the court to uphold the ban.
"I'm doing my part to fight gun violence: getting Pres Biden to regulate ghost guns, fighting 3D guns, suing Fleet Farm for allowing straw purchases, and investigating the conversion of Glocks pistols into illegal machine guns. I'm disappointed in SCOTUS but I'm not giving up," Ellison wrote on X/Twitter.
This is a developing story. Stay with WCCO.com for more.