Trump administration officially bans bump stocks on guns

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday rolled out a new federal rule prohibiting bump stocks, the devices that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire sustained and faster rounds, thus making assaults more lethal.

The add-ons drew public attention in October 2017 when a gunman equipped his weapons with the devices and killed 58 people in a concert in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The bump stock slides back and forth while the shooter puts the finger on the trigger of the gun and harnesses the recoil to fire multiple shots in rapid succession.

A semiautomatic rifle usually fires 60 rounds in a minute, while with a bump stock it can fire hundreds of rounds per minute, making it no difference to a fully automatic machine gun, of which private ownership is banned by the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act.

The new regulation, whose announcement was reported by U.S. media as early as late November, will give owners of bump stocks a 90-day time period to turn the devices in to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (ATF) and Explosives or destroy them. Information on destruction of the bump stocks, according to the regulation, will be available on the ATF's website.

A Department of Justice official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was quoted by The New York Times as telling reporters that it is believed that tens of thousands of bump stocks are in circulation nationwide, although the exact number is hard to count.