Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the Supreme Court overturning a ban on gun bump stocks

The Supreme Court has overturned a ban on a rapid fire gun accessory used in the United States' deadliest mass shooting.

The Court ruled six to three to lift the federal ban on bump stock devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire hundreds of bullets a minute.

It was initially introduced by the Trump administration in 2018 - after 60 people were shot at a Las Vegas music festival.

US Correspondent Richard Arnold says critics have labelled this reversal 'dangerous'.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Supreme Court fronts and center. Yeah, President Biden doing what
he is held back from doing for a while. Now
he is ripping into the Supreme Court. Hearth court in
this country, says Biden.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Supreme Court has never been as out of kilder as
it is today. Well.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Biden was appearing at a star studded Hollywood fundraiser last
night alongside and former President Obama. Also at this scene
was Late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who served as MC,
and several alist actors, among them George Clooney, Julie Roberts,
Barbra Streisen, and so on. At this event, they raised
close to fifty million dollars in New Zealand equivalent. Biden
predicted that the next president, whoever, is likely to have

(00:38):
two more Supreme Court picks. Former President Trump already has
three nominees on the Court as part of the six
to three conservative majority currently. If Trump gets in, says Biden,
he's going to a point maybe two more justices flying
flags upside down. That's his reference to Justice Samuel Alito,
who blamed his wife, you recall, for flying an upside
down flag at his place in what he said was

(01:00):
a dispute with neighbors, only to have another flag used
by the Capitol Hill rioters seen at the Elitos other place,
their holiday home elsewhere. So they're big on political flag cling.
This comes after the Trump bolsted Supreme Court overturned abortion
rights with Row v. Way, and this past weekend issued
something the New York Times Editorial board cause quote one

(01:21):
of the most astonishingly dangerous decisions ever issued by the court,
end quote, and a decision that quote will prove fatal.
They overturned the Trump ban on bump stocks, the devices
that can turn a semi automatic weapon into a virtual
machine gun. They say practiced users can fire maybe one
hundred and eighty rounds per minute with an AR fifteen
most commonly used weapon in the routine mass murders here.

(01:44):
We see those stories every second day. The bump stock
lets them boost that number of shots permitted to as
much as eight hundred. That's what we saw in the
twenty seventeen Las Vegas shooting, where a fellow opened fire
on the crowd at a country music festival. And here's
just a little reminder of how when yeah, this was

(02:14):
this was a massacre, one person killing sixty other people
directly wouning four hundred and thirteen and leading in the
panic to some eight hundred and sixty seven injuries. Even
Trump reacted, but not so Justice Clarence Thomas on the
Supreme Court, who argues that the eighty dollars bump stock
does not fit the precise definition of a machine gun
or associated device, since it uses the gun's recoil to

(02:36):
increase speed of fire in descent. Justice Sonya Soto Mayor
voiced her astonishment, writing quote, when I see a bird
that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and
quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.
The bumpstock, she says, turns weapons into machine guns. Clarence
Thomas did not agree. Thomas, of course, is the justice
caught out by the media for taking luxury trips worth

(02:57):
millions and millions of bucks paid for by billionaire real
estate tycoon and Nazi memorabilia collector Harland Crow. That disclosure
forced Thomas to admit just the other day that he'd
taken such previies, made a list of them, taking them
from someone who well might have cases of interest before
the Supreme Court. He listed the trips last week, then
pro publica said, hey, you know there's three other private

(03:17):
jet trips you didn't bother dimension. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy says,
of this.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, Justice Stimus is engaged in is just a grift. Right,
He's got a major political player on the outside who
absolutely has political and business interests at the court.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Meantime, back on the guns, there have been three more
mass shootings in the past twenty four hours Mike in Texas,
two dead, multiple injured, Massachusetts, seven youths shut up in
a car meet up at in Michigan where nine wounded,
including two young children, at a shooting at a swimming
pool splash pad. That shooter fight as many as twenty
eight times reloading, then killed himself. He was in his forties,

(03:54):
lived with his mum, and while police now say he
likely had some mental issues, he had loads of AMMO
at an AR fifteen. They soult in the weapon anyway,
despite anybody's concerns about anything. And now, of course, if
he were still alive, he'd be able to buy that
bump stock and fire eight hundred rounds per minute. Right
might see Wednesday appreciate it very much. Richard Arnold stateside

(04:15):
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