WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday issued a new rule banning bump stocks, the attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire in sustained, rapid bursts and that a gunman used to massacre 58 people and wound hundreds of others at a Las Vegas concert in October 2017.

The new regulation, which had been expected, would ban the sale or possession of the devices under a new interpretation of existing law. Americans who own bump stocks would have 90 days to destroy their devices or to turn them in to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Justice Department said A.T.F. would post destruction instructions on its website.

Bump stocks work by harnessing a firearm’s recoil energy to slide it back and forth to bump against a squeezed trigger, so that it keeps firing without any need for the shooter to pull the trigger again. The Justice Department said that this function transforms semiautomatic weapons, like assault rifles styled on the AR-15, into fully automatic machine guns, which Congress sharply restricted in 1986 — allowing the ban.</s>The US government said Tuesday it was banning bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like machine guns and that were used in a mass shooting in Las Vegas in October 2017.

The devices, which harness the recoil of a semi-automatic rifle's discharge to make the trigger fire faster, effectively turn the weapons into machine guns, which are illegal, the Justice Department said.

Bump stocks allow a "shooter of a semi-automatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger," the department said in a statement.

The devices were used by Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock on a dozen rifles he deployed to kill 58 people and wound 500 at an open concert last year, the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history.

Bump stocks allowed him to fire at a rate of nine bullets a second, before he turned his weapons on himself.

Following another gun massacre at a school in Parkland, Florida, in February this year that left 17 people dead, more than a million people demonstrated for stricter gun control.

President Donald Trump announced his intention to ban bump stocks but refused restrictions on semi-automatic assault weapons.

The National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby, did not mount any major campaign to counter a bump stock ban.

Anyone owning a bump stock will have 90 days after the new regulation is published in the Federal Register to either hand in their devices to the authorities, or destroy them.

While a third of US households possess a firearm, the majority of Americans favor tougher gun controls such as background checks for people seeking to buy a weapon.</s>Trump administration moves to officially ban bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration moves to officially ban bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump administration moves to officially ban bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly.</s>The Trump administration is banning bump stocks, the firearm attachment that allows a semiautomatic weapon to shoot almost as fast as a machine gun.

The devices, also known as slide fires, came under intense scrutiny after they were used by the gunman who opened fire on a country music concert in Las Vegas last year, killing 58 people.

The massacre touched off a public outcry, including from some lawmakers, for the accessories to be banned.

Under a new federal rule announced Tuesday by the Justice Department, bump stocks will be redefined as "machine guns" and therefore outlawed under existing law.

The new regulations, which were signed by acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, will take effect 90 days after being published in the Federal Register. A Justice Department official said that would likely happen Friday.

Current bump stock owners will have the 90 days before the new rule takes effect to either destroy the devices they own or turn them in to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The new regulations could face legal challenges from the National Rifle Association, bump stock owners or manufacturers. A Justice Department official said the department is confident in its analysis and is prepared to defend the new rule in court if needed.

Justice Department officials say they don't know exactly how many bump stocks are privately owned, but they estimate the number in the tens of thousands.

Trump ordered the Justice Department to ban the devices in March. The department followed up by proposing a federal rule change that would reclassify bump stocks so they fell under the definition of a "machine gun," as it's now doing.

Fully automatic machine guns are strictly controlled in the U.S. It is illegal under federal law for a private citizen to own a machine gun that was manufactured after 1986.</s>The Justice Department announced Tuesday that bump stocks have been banned. The controversial handgun accessory, which allows shooters to fire bullets from semi-automatic weapons faster than would normally be possible, drew national scrutiny after they were used to kill 59 people in Las Vegas in 2017. Under the new ruling from the Trump administration, bump stocks will be illegal to possess 90 days from when the regulation is formally published, which CNN reports will likely be Friday.

In announcing the new policy, the Justice Department said that because bump stocks "allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger," they qualify as "machineguns" — which are illegal — under existing law.

"A semiautomatic firearm to which a bump-stock-type device is attached is able to produce automatic fire with a single pull of the trigger," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of the DOJ, wrote in its new ruling. "With limited exceptions, the Gun Control Act [of 1968] makes it unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun unless it was lawfully possessed prior to the effective date of the statute. The bumpstock-type devices covered by this final rule were not in existence prior to the effective date of the statute, and therefore will be prohibited when this rule becomes effective."

Owners of bump stocks will have 90 days from when the regulation is published in the federal register — probably Friday, according to CNN — to either turn in their bump stocks to a local ATF office or destroy them. The ban could be subject to legal action from gun rights organizations, which have long warned against the specter of the federal government forcing Americans to hand over their firearms; however, no such action has yet been announced.

In a statement to Bustle, the National Rifle Association said it was "disappointed" in the ruling and suggested that it was unfair to Americans who had already bought bump stocks.

"We are disappointed that this final rule fails to address the thousands of law-abiding Americans who relied on prior ATF determinations when lawfully acquiring these device," the NRA said in its statement. "As we recommended to ATF in our comments on the proposed rule, Congress made it possible for the Attorney General to provide amnesty for firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act. The Attorney General should have exercised that authority to provide a period of amnesty under this rule.”

After the Las Vegas shooting, the NRA said in a a statement that "devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations," and called on the Justice Department to "immediately review whether [bump stocks] comply with federal law." However, it didn't call for them to be banned entirely.

President Trump announced his intent to ban bump stocks earlier in the year, and in March, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a proposed rule similar to the one that was unveiled on Tuesday.

The final regulation was signed by Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Sessions' former chief of staff. Whitaker assumed office without Senate confirmation after Sessions resigned in November; many legal experts have argued that this was unconstitutional, and there are several lawsuits challenging the legality of Whitaker's appointment and office-holding.</s>It Will Take Effect in Late March

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration is moving to officially ban bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like automatic firearms.

A senior Justice Department official says bump stocks will be banned under the federal law that prohibits machine guns. It will take effect in late March. After that, it will be illegal to possess bump stocks.

The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The devices became a focal point in the national gun control debate after they were used in October 2017 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Gunman Stephen Paddock rained a hail of bullets from his 32nd-floor Las Vegas hotel room, killing 58 people at a concert.</s>Blumenthal to push for bump stock ban despite regulation

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal says he welcomes the Trump administration's move to officially ban gun bump stocks, but believes legislation is still needed.

The Democrat on Tuesday said he'll "continue to call for a vote" in Congress to prohibit the devices, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like automatic firearms. Blumenthal says the nation needs "clear and certain protection that can only come from legislation banning these devices for good."

A Justice Department official says Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker signed the new regulation on Tuesday morning. It will take effect in late March.

Bump stocks were used in October 2017 by a man who opened fire from his Las Vegas hotel suite into a crowd at a country music festival, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.</s>The Trump administration moved Tuesday to ban bump stocks -- devices that can make semi-automatic firearms fire at a rate similar to automatic weapons -- under a federal law that also bans machine guns, Justice Department officials said in a news release.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said authorities amended a regulation on Tuesday to include bump stocks in the definition of “machinegun” under federal law. The regulation will go into effect 90 days after it’s formally published in the Federal Register, a move expected to come Friday, according to The Associated Press.

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a news briefing Tuesday that people who have bump stocks will be required to turn the devices over to officials at field offices for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or destroy them by March 21.

Hours after Whitaker announced the move, opponents of the decision said they planned to fight the change.

>> From Cox Media Group’s Jamie Dupree: Trump ban on ‘bump stocks’ to face immediate legal challenge
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The ban was expected after the Justice Department earlier this year proposed a rule to classify bump stocks and similar devices as prohibited under federal law.

Trump issued a memorandum in the wake of February’s deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, ordering the attorney general to “propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machineguns,” according to Justice Department officials. Authorities reviewed more than 186,000 public comments as part of the review process.

The Justice Department opened a review of the devices in the wake of the 2017 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas that left nearly 60 people dead. Authorities said a gunman had bump stocks equipped to several weapons on Oct. 1, 2017, when he fired on festivalgoers.</s>The Justice Department on Tuesday issued its final rule banning bump stocks — a device that was prominently used in the Las Vegas shooting massacre last year, which allows a semi-automatic rifle to work like a machine gun.

"We are faithfully following President Trump’s leadership by making clear that bump stocks, which turn semiautomatics into machine guns, are illegal, and we will continue to take illegal guns off of our streets," Whitaker said.

Later, at a school safety event at the White House, he called it a "big victory" for Trump's administration.

Trump had urged the federal government to ban bump stocks this past spring following a deadly Valentine's Day shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead. However, the device gained notoriety when a lone gunman killed 59 people and injured at least 527 others attending a country music festival in Las Vegas in October 2017. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, had 22 semi-automatic rifles and 14 of them were equipped with bump stocks. They allowed him to fire the rifles continuously with a single pull of the trigger, resulting in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

"We've taken important steps, but much work remains to be done, as always," Trump said of his administration's actions on guns and school safety at the White House event.

The rule amends the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to include all bump-stock-type devices and re-classify them as machine guns. The move would ban individuals from owning or selling bump stocks, or similarly designed devices. Once the rule becomes effective, anyone owning one would be required to destroy it or turn it over to a local ATF office, the DOJ said.

The rule will become final 90 days after it is published in the Federal Register.

Whitaker also said on Tuesday at the White House that bump stock owners would have 90 days to destroy their devices or to turn them. The Justice Department said the ATF plans to post instructions on how to properly destroy the device on its website.

Matt Deitsch, the co-founder of March for Our Lives, a youth-led movement against gun violence created after the Parkland shooting, said the ban “took far too long,” but that it was a step in the right direction.

"This is a good first step, but it only scratches the surface of the reforms we need to end the epidemic of gun violence in America once and for all. We welcome this new policy, but we cannot allow the current Administration, members of Congress, or the NRA to use this as cover while they stall on reforms that our country and communities need immediately,” Deitsch said.

The National Rifle Association, however, said in a statement to NBC News that the rule should have offered "amnesty" to current bump stock owners because of a 2010 decision by the ATF that found bump stocks did not amount to machine guns and could not be regulated unless Congress amended existing firearms law or passed a new one.

“We are disappointed that this final rule fails to address the thousands of law-abiding Americans who relied on prior ATF determinations when lawfully acquiring these devices,” Jennifer Baker, an NRA spokeswoman, said. "As we recommended to ATF in our comments on the proposed rule, Congress made it possible for the Attorney General to provide amnesty for firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act. The Attorney General should have exercised that authority to provide a period of amnesty under this rule."
The U.S. Department of Justice issues a final regulation banning the use of bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic rifles to be fired at a rate similar to that of automatic weapons and became infamous following the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. It is scheduled to go into effect on March 21, 2019.