WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) released the following statement on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Garland v. Cargill, which struck down a 2017 ban on bump stocks.

“The horrific reality is that this decision by a radical, right-wing Court is going to cost innocent lives. In October of 2017, 60 people were slaughtered and more than 800 others were injured in Las Vegas, Nevada, by a mass shooter who fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition with semiautomatic rifles legally modified with bump stocks. There is no reason anyone would need a semiautomatic rifle to fire more rapidly unless they want to shoot and kill as many people as quickly as possible. Today’s decision makes all of us less safe and proves this Court has no qualms about legislating from the bench against the will of the American people. Congress needs to act immediately to ban these dangerous devices once and for all.”

In 2022, Murphy authored and helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first significant gun safety legislation in three decades. Last year, Murphy joined his colleagues in reintroducing the Assault Weapons Ban, which would ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and other high-capacity ammunition feeding devices, as well as the Age 21 Act, which would raise the minimum age to purchase assault weapons from 18 to 21, the same requirement that currently exists in law for handguns.

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