SALT LAKE CITY — A prominent Utah gun rights activist has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over a ban on bump stocks.
Clark Aposhian, the chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Wednesday seeking to block the government from implementing the ban.
Aposhian argues that a recently passed rule by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that effectively bans bump stocks would make him a criminal if he didn’t surrender it.
Pressure began to mount on the Trump administration and the ATF after the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, had weapons modified with bump stocks, which are gun stocks that allow them to fire more rapidly.
A rule change declared them machine guns and thus made them illegal, Aposhian’s lawsuit states.
“The Acting Attorney General’s purported interpretation will make owners of the
estimated 520,000 lawfully acquired bump stocks into felons, despite the lack of a statutory prohibition on these items,” the lawsuit states.
Aposhian seeks an injunction blocking the rule from going into effect.
