Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a Sunday interview the Supreme Court seems poised “to fundamentally rewrite” the Second Amendment and raised concerns about the high court’s decision to strike down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, Murphy said he is worried the high court will take steps to limit Congress’s power to regulate guns.
Murphy’s biggest concern, he said, “is that this Supreme Court has been signaling, in some of their decisions on guns, that they are readying to fundamentally rewrite the Second Amendment and take away permanently the ability of Congress to do simple things, like require people to go through a background check or move forward on taking dangerous weapons like AR-15s off of the streets.”
“So I think this court is poised to make it very hard for Congress or state legislatures to be able to regulate guns and keep our communities and schools safe,” Murphy added.
The court struck down the ban Friday on ideological lines, ending the nationwide prohibition on bump stocks, which convert semi-automatic weapons into ones capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute.
The Biden administration defended the regulation in front of the high court after the Trump administration first implemented it in the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, the deadliest in U.S. history. Authorities said the shooter used guns equipped with bump stocks to kill 60 people and wound hundreds of others.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had classified the devices as machine guns under long-standing federal law, making their possession a criminal offense. The case before the Supreme Court did not implicate the Second Amendment.
In a 6-3 decision authored by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the court said the ATF stretched the law too far, ruling in favor of the challenger. Justice Samuel Alito joined Thomas’s opinion but separately wrote that a “simple remedy” is for Congress to amend the law to allow for the bump stock ban.
“This is a Republican administration that banned bump stocks. At the time, Republicans in the Senate and the House were supportive of it,” Murphy said in Sunday’s interview.
“But now that they have got a Supreme Court that seems ready to unwind the entirety of the Second Amendment and take away from Congress or the executive branch the ability to keep our communities safe, they’re once again lining up behind the gun industry.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that he is planning to hold a vote on legislation to ban gun bump stocks this week.