A federal claims court this week dismissed a lawsuit from bump stock owners that had alleged the U.S. government was improperly forcing them to destroy their devices without compensation.
Bump stock owners filed the $500,000 lawsuit in March, after a federal reclassification of bump stocks as machine guns effectively outlawed their possession. The reclassification was prompted by the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Bump stocks are attachments to semi-automatic firearms that use the recoil energy of a weapon's fire to repel it backward into the user's trigger finger, allowing another shot to be fired off without a distinct pull.
The plaintiffs said that new regulations required owners to destroy or forfeit their devices, which violated the Fifth Amendment's "Takings Clause." The clause prohibits government seizure of private property without just compensation.