Schumer slams Republicans for blocking ‘life and death’ bump stock ban after Supreme Court ruling

Eric Garcia
·2-min read
Schumer slams Republicans for blocking ‘life and death’ bump stock ban after Supreme Court ruling

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed Republican Senators for blocking an attempt to bring legislation to ban bump stocks to the Senate floor after the Supreme Court overturned a Trump-era ban on the devices.

Senate Democrats had hoped to put legislation that would ban bump stocks — devices that can be attached to semi-automatic weapons that allow them to fire faster — to a vote on Tuesday.

The bill came after Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 6-3 ruling that under the Trump administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had incorrectly acted under the Trump administration to ban bump stocks.

The Trump administration had taken action to ban bump stocks after a shooter fired 1,000 rounds into a crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people in 11 minutes.

In the wake of the shooting, some Republicans expressed openness to either voting to ban bump stocks or allowing the ATF to ban them. In the wake of the shooting, nine Republican senator sent a letter to the ATF asking it to review the sale of bump stocks.

In turn, Schumer charged Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico to push for his legislation to ban bump stocks, which he called “a matter of life and death.”

In a floor speech, Schumer also cited previous remarks Senate Majority Whip John Thune, often thought to be a successor to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying they would vote to get rid of bump stocks.

“If banning bump stocks was good enough for Republicans in the past, it should be good enough for them today,” he said. “But if Republicans block this bill today, after claiming to support bump stock bans in years past, a ban even President Trump supported when he was president, shame on them. They’d be siding with the gun lobby over families exasperated by gun violence.”

But Republican Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska objected to a request by Heinrich for unanimous consent for the bill, saying that Schumer was showboating simply because the court ruled in a way that he did not like.

“He claims this bill will ban bump stocks, but just like his previously misnamed bills, if you actually read the bill, that's not what it does at all,” Ricketts said in a floor speech.

Ricketts also charged that the legislation would also ban devices beyond bump stocks, which Heinrich refuted.

“It would however, ban bump stocks and it would ban things like block switches, which also let semi automatic firearms act as fully automatic firearms,” he said. “I think the American people understand what common sense gun safety looks like.”

Even if the legislation would have passed the House of Representatives, the legislation would likely have faced major hurdles in the House, given that Republicans have the majority in the lower chamber.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • Indonesia detains 103 foreigners in a raid in Bali involving suspected cybercrime

    Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 foreign nationals after a raid at a villa on the resort island of Bali, officials said Thursday. Immigration authorities said they conducted the raid on Wednesday at a villa in Kukuh village in Tabanan district and detained 91 men and 12 women.

  • South Korea is running out of children – and this country could be next

    Every spring, when warm rays of sunshine herald the start of South Korea’s baking summer, fountains across Seoul’s central Gwanghwamun plaza suddenly burst into life, sending cooling jets of water into the air.

  • Breaking ranks: Justice Amy Coney Barrett defies Supreme Court conservatives to back environmental protections

    Justice Barrett, a Trump appointee, split from her conservative colleagues in recent decisions

  • Social Media Predicts Outcome Of Trump-Biden Debate — And It's Hilarious

    Pundits and politicians aren’t the only ones offering their hot takes on how Thursday’s CNN event will go.

  • Beijing backtracks on a law punishing clothing that hurts ‘the feelings of the Chinese people’ after a public outcry

    People were concerned about the law's vagueness, after reported incidents where officials targeted people wearing traditional Japanese clothing.

  • US Air Force member charged with kidnapping and raping Japanese schoolgirl

    Japanese prosecutors have charged a US Air Force member with allegedly kidnapping and raping an underage girl just before Christmas last year, Okinawa police confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

  • Modi's govt calls on Indian state to look into Reuters report on Foxconn hiring

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government on Wednesday said it has asked the Tamil Nadu state to submit a "detailed report" after a Reuters story revealed that Apple supplier Foxconn rejected married women from iPhone assembly jobs in the country. In a statement calling for the probe, the federal government's Ministry of Labour and Employment cited the Equal Remuneration Act of 1976, saying the law "clearly stipulates that no discrimination (is) to be made while recruiting men and women workers." The ministry said it has requested a detailed report from the Labour Department of Tamil Nadu, site of a major iPhone factory where Reuters uncovered Foxconn’s practice of shunning married women from jobs.

  • ‘This party should fall’: MAGA candidate who didn’t win Boebert’s old seat calls Republican Party ‘irredeemable’

    Volunteers and supporters of grassroots Colorado Republican Ron Hanks, who’d hoped to fill the congressional seat vacated by fellow MAGA diehard Lauren Boebert, gathered Tuesday night at a Grand Junction brewery for a watch party. Hanks lamented the results — and the state of the Republican Party. Sheila Flynn reports from the third congressional district

  • Iran is preparing to open a new front in its war against Israel

    If, as the polls indicate, Labour will form our new government next week, it is likely that one of its first challenges will be how to respond to the eruption of full-scale hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

  • North Korea to send engineering troops to help Russia rebuild bombed cities

    North Korea will send a “large number” of engineering and construction troops to help rebuild Russian-occupied cities in eastern Ukraine, according to reports.

  • Bolivian army chief arrested after coup attempt

    Bolivia's army chief was arrested Wednesday after sending soldiers and tanks to take up position in front of government buildings in what President Luis Arce called an attempted "coup d'etat".The troops and tanks entered Plaza Murillo, a historic square where the presidency and Congress are situated, in the afternoon, prompting global condemnation of an attack on democracy.One of the tanks tried to break down a metal door of the presidential palace.Surrounded by soldiers and eight tanks, the now-dismissed army chief General Juan Jose Zuniga said the "armed forces intend to restructure democracy, to make it a true democracy and not one run by the same few people for 30, 40 years."Shortly thereafter, AFP reporters saw soldiers and tanks pulling back from the square.Later Wednesday, Zuniga was captured and forced into a police car as he addressed reporters outside a military barracks, footage on state television showed. "General, you are under arrest," Deputy Interior Minister Jhonny Aguilera told Zuniga."No one can take away the democracy we have won," Arce said from a balcony of the government palace in front of hundreds of supporters.Earlier he had urged "the Bolivian people to organize and mobilize against the coup d'etat in favor of democracy," in a televised message to the country alongside his ministers inside the presidential palace. He also swore in new military leaders, firing Zuniga.Former president Evo Morales wrote on X that "a coup d'etat is brewing" and also urged a "national mobilization to defend democracy."- Zuniga's anti-democratic remarks -Bolivia is deeply polarized after years of political instability and the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is riven by internal conflict between supporters of Arce and his former mentor Morales.Morales, who was Bolivia's first Indigenous president, was extremely popular until he tried to bypass the constitution and seek a fourth term in office in 2019. The leftist and former coca union leader won that vote but was forced to resign amid deadly protests over alleged election fraud, and fled the country. He returned after Arce won the presidency in October 2020.Since then a power struggle has grown between the two men, and Morales has increasingly criticized the government and accused it of corruption, tolerating drug trafficking, and sidelining him politically.Six months ago, the Constitutional Court disqualified Morales from the 2025 elections, however he is still seeking nomination as the MAS candidate.Arce has not said whether he will seek re-election.Zuniga appeared on television on Monday and said he would arrest Morales if he insisted on running for office again in 2025."Legally he is disqualified, that man cannot be president of this country again," he said.Since that interview, rumors have swirled that Zuniga was on the verge of being dismissed.- Calls for calm -The US administration of Joe Biden said it was keeping a close eye on events in Bolivia and "calls for calm," according to a spokesperson for the National Security Council.Condemnations of the troop movements also poured in from across Latin America, with leaders of Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela calling for democracy to be respected. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrote on X: "I am a lover of democracy and I want it to prevail throughout Latin America. We condemn any form of coup d'etat in Bolivia."Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday called for "respect for democracy and the rule of law," in a message on X.The Organization of American States (OAS) said the international community would "not tolerate any form of breach of the legitimate constitutional order in Bolivia."bur-fb/md

  • Speaker Johnson: ‘No one expects that Joe Biden will be on cocaine’ at debate

    Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday that no one expects President Biden to be “on cocaine” during the debate later this week, despite President Trump and his allies suggesting otherwise. Johnson joined CNN’s Kaitlan Collins to discuss how at a recent rally, Trump told his supporters that Biden is “gonna be so pumped up” and…

  • Israel says it can send Lebanon 'back to Stone Age' as UN warns against war

    Israel said it does not want war in Lebanon but could send its neighbour "back to the Stone Age", as the UN's humanitarian chief warned such a conflict would be "potentially apocalyptic".It's potentially apocalyptic," warned Griffiths, whose term ends this week.

  • US moves forces closer to Israel and Lebanon amid concerns of escalating cross-border fire

    The US is moving forces closer to Israel and Lebanon amid concerns of escalating cross-border fire, according to two US officials, including forces able to carry out an evacuation of American citizens.

  • South Korea's military fires on border islands for the first time in 7 years as a North Korean missile fails and the balloon war rages on

    It's been a noticeably tense time on the Korean peninsula lately with spats, deals, and muscle flexing.

  • India's Rahul Gandhi faces new test in revived fortunes

    Once dismissed as an "empty suit", perennial Indian premier-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi emerged from his third consecutive election defeat with his reputation enhanced and his party back from the political wilderness.Leaked US embassy cables disparagingly referred to him as an "empty suit", and Modi dismissed him as a dynast more interested in luxury and self-indulgence than fighting to helm the world's biggest democracy. 

  • Sandy Hook victim's brother is 'shocked' that a letter Trump once sent him turned up in a Mar-a-Lago evidence photo

    Trump sent JT Lewis a condolence letter in 2018. A draft of the letter was among keepsakes prosecutors say Trump kept mingled with national secrets.

  • Critics Clown Marjorie Taylor Greene Over Wild Election 'Self-Own': 'NO Self Awareness'

    Social media users spotted the far-right Republican's hypocrisy as she argued to reduce a top official's salary to $1 over DEI directives.

  • Chris Wallace's Stunning Claim On Trump Strategy For Debate Cracks Up CNN Pundit

    Wallace's claim about the former president's planned approach was too much for Jamie Gangel, who repeatedly laughed.

  • GOP Lawmaker Gets Mountain Of Mockery After Wild New Biden Conspiracy Theory

    Rep. Eric Burlison's attack on the president fell flat on social media.