Supreme Court gun ruling stuns Las Vegas shooting survivors
On October 1, 2017, Heather Gooze was bartending at the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas when terrified concert-goers, covered in blood, began rushing into her bar.
A gunman positioned in a high-rise Las Vegas hotel had started shooting at the crowd below, resulting in the deaths of 60 people and injuries to over 400 others. He managed to execute the deadliest mass shooting in US history by using a bump stock, a device that enables a rifle to fire rapidly like a machine gun.
In the wake of the massacre, then-President Donald Trump banned bump stocks, marking a rare instance of the US enacting gun policy reforms following a mass shooting. Survivors of the attack, including Ms. Gooze, welcomed this change.
The ban was particularly noteworthy because it was implemented by a Republican president and supported by the National Rifle Association, entities typically resistant to gun control measures.
However, on Friday, the US Supreme Court invalidated the ban, ruling in a 6-3 decision that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had exceeded its authority by prohibiting the device.
For survivors like Ms. Gooze, who identifies as liberal and praised Trump’s ban as “phenomenal,” the court’s decision felt like a regressive step for the country.
“Who has ever used a bump stock for good?” she told the BBC. “There’s no reason for a civilian to use a mass shooting machine.”
Ms. Gooze, 50, still vividly recalls the chaos of helping people escape and the desperate efforts to save those hit by over 1,000 rounds fired by the gunman with the bump stock.
“I had my finger in the bullet hole of one of our angels in the back of their head,” she said of one victim she tried to save. She remained with the body of another victim for hours, using a phone from their pocket to contact their family.
“I watched people’s lives change right in front of my face, as well as my own,” she said.
Among those affected was Brittany Quintero. Ms. Quintero was separated from her friend amid the chaos, and although they both survived, she has spent years dealing with the trauma inflicted by the shooting.
She told the BBC that the Supreme Court’s decision had left her reeling.
“It feels like another slap in the face, to be honest,” she said.
Ms Quintero, 41, said she does not necessarily believe that more stringent gun restrictions would help prevent mass shootings. She also believes not enough proposed solutions address mental health.
“I don’t think taking away people’s Second Amendment rights is going to solve these things that keep occurring,” she said, referring to the protections for gun owners enshrined in the US Constitution.
“If someone has it in their mind to do it, they’re going to find a way or other means.”
But despite her reservations, she still thinks the Supreme Court was wrong to reinstate access to bump stocks.
The Route 91 survivors were not universally disheartened by the Supreme Court decision. Several were discussing the news in a private Facebook group, Ms Gooze said, and some members of the community had responded that the ruling did not bother them.
“A gun isn’t the issue, we need them to keep what little freedom we have left. It’s the government that’s the enemy,” one survivor wrote in a message that Ms Gooze read to the BBC.
Gun violence remains a major public safety issue in the United States. The nation has experienced 215 mass shootings so far in 2024, according to the Gun Violence Archive (their methodology defines a mass shooting as when four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter).
Both Ms Gooze and Ms Quintero lamented that the gun debate had grown so politicised.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to see in my lifetime a true law or decision that will be made to solve the gun violence issue,” Ms Gooze said.
Repeated attempts to ban bump stocks through federal legislation have stalled, and face little chance of passing in the near term due to a divided Congress.
Trump, who is again running for president, said he would respect the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down his policy and reaffirmed his support for broader access to guns.
“The Court has spoken and their decision should be respected,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump has been and always will be a fierce defender of Americans’ Second Amendment rights and he is proud to be endorsed by the NRA.”
In video on X, formerly Twitter, the gun shop owner who challenged the bump stock ban at the Supreme Court celebrated his victory and said he had prevented the government from banning other gun parts.
The nation’s highest court sided with his argument that the Trump administration overstepped when it sought to regulate bump stocks like machine guns.
“I stood and fought,” said gun shop owner Michael Cargill, “and because of this, the bump stock case is going to be the case that saves everything.”
