Survivors of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and families who received sombre calls hours later said they were alarmed when the US Supreme Court yesterday struck down a ban on the gun attachment used by the gunman who rattled off over 1000 bullets in 11 minutes.
The Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a rapid-fire accessory that allows a rate of fire comparable to that of machine guns, was nixed in a six to three majority opinion.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the opinion, wrote that the Justice Department was wrong in declaring that bump stocks transformed semiautomatic rifles into illegal machines guns because they don’t “alter the basic mechanics of firing".
The ruling was not directly about the Second Amendment, and Justice Samuel Alito concurred with Thomas but wrote a short separate opinion to stress that Congress can change the law.
“I’m pro-gun, but I don’t believe anyone should have an automatic weapon in a civilised world. It’s a bomb waiting to go off," said Craig Link, whose brother, Victor Link, was struck in the head as the first barrage of shots rang out.
Victor Link, 55, died soon after.
Link said the two were like twins, though "I never met anybody that didn’t like Victor. I met some people that didn’t like me,” he said, laughing, then welling up.
Link was supposed to be at the concert with his brother, a fact that has whirled in his head ever since.
“I can’t help but think over and over again, he and I might’ve been going to get a beer when that happened, or it might’ve been me instead of him,” he said.
The gunman fired into an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 people and wounding more than 850 among the crowd of 22,000.
Shawna Bartlett, 49, was in the front row when bullets began hailing down and her friend was struck in the back.
Amid ricocheting bullets and the screams, Bartlett helped load her friend into an ambulance, and she survived.
“I’m not telling you that you can’t get a gun," said Bartlett, but "why does anyone need a bump stock? Why does it need to be legal? People don’t use them for hunting, or in law enforcement," Bartlett said.
She said she struggled for years to deal with the trauma of the shooting, but things have felt much better in recent years.
“I've come really far in my healing process," she said. “I can talk about it now without crying.”
Danette Meyers, who become a spokesperson for her good friends, the family of Christiana Duarte, who was slain at the concert, said she worries that even if Congress does act, it will take time.
“It’s certainly going to give someone out there the opportunity to buy one of these things and just create another mass slaughter,” Meyers said.