The White House responded to the wave of March For Our Lives protests in the nation’s capital and beyond on Saturday morning by promoting the Trump administration’s efforts to ban bump stocks — an attempt that will likely either fail without congressional support or be met with pushback from gun rights groups.

“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today,” Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters wrote in a statement. “Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President’s, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS [National Instant Criminal Background Check System] and STOP School Violence Acts, and signed them into law. Additionally, on Friday, the Department of Justice issued the rule to ban bump stocks following through on the President’s commitment to ban devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”

While Trump is at his golf club, his deputy press secretary issue this statement on the #MarchForOurLives “We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today." pic.twitter.com/yPBycZnZlV — Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) March 24, 2018

The STOP School Violence Act, introduced by Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) and supported by legislators on both sides of the aisle, was signed into law on Friday and provides funding for increased school safety measures as well as training for teachers and staff to identify potential threats.


The Fix NICS Act was attached to the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill passed on Friday and strengthens existing background check systems for all gun sales, penalizing agencies that fail to report relevant eligibility records that determine whether someone is able to purchase a firearm.

The bump stock ban, however, is more complicated. The Justice Department on Friday issued a proposed rule that would require all bump stocks — devices which allow a semi-automatic firearm to mimic the firepower of a fully automatic weapon — to be destroyed or surrendered. It’s the kind of devices used by a gunman during a horrific shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas in October that killed 58 people.

“After the senseless shooting in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated.

However, officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) have stated repeatedly that it’s impossible to impose such a ban without new legislation from Congress. Because bump stock-modified weapons are not classified as machine guns — fully automatic weapons that are considered illegal under current law — the Justice Department and ATF would need legislators to reclassify them as such first before enacting any sort of regulations on them.

Using the National Firearm Act of 1934, ATF defines a machine gun as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to [automatically] shoot” more than one shot with a single trigger pull. Bump stock-modified firearms are not considered machine guns because the trigger must be engaged every time the user wants to fire a round.


“We could not find a way to classify [a bump stock-modified firearm] as a machine gun,” ATF senior technical expert Rick Vasquez told The Trace in October. “We tested the product; consulted applicable laws, including the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the National Firearms Act; and wrote an evaluation…it was a monumental job.”

Previous attempts by legislators to ban bump stocks have also fallen flat. As ThinkProgress previously reported, in 2013, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a bill that would have banned bump stocks and halted the sale of military-style “assault” weapons that could accept a detachable stock. And as Vox noted in October, the proposal was met with pushback from Republicans and some Democrats and was never brought to a vote.

Without proper legislative procedures, any proposed bump stock ban will likely be met with resistance from gun groups. Already, the National Rifle Association has said it supports such a ban, but believes the administration should do so through regulatory measures within the Justice Department — the same kind of regulatory measures that ATF has said would be impossible to implement without congressional action.

The March For Our Lives protests come a little more than a month after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, which left 17 people dead. The young survivors of that shooting, along with those who have lived through other instances of gun violence, as well as the relatives of shooting victims, have since taken their message to state and federal leaders. They have been urging officials to enact stricter gun laws and close loopholes that may have allowed the Parkland shooter — and others like him — to obtain a firearm, despite having a documented history of violent tendencies.

Saturday’s demonstrations, the culmination of those efforts, and have drawn support from a wide array of politicians, celebrities, and public figures, including President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.

President Trump left the White House for his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida on Friday evening and has not yet weighed in on the protests.