June 15, 2024

Kyle Rittenhouse, Killer of Two, Cheers as Supreme Court Ends Bump Stock Ban

“Time to go celebrate…!”

Kyle Rittenhouse smiling

Kyle RittenhouseBrian Cahn/ZUMA

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Gun rights activist Kyle Rittenhouse wants you to know that he’s very pleased with the Supreme Court, after the justices on Friday overturned a federal ban on bump stocks—devices that are attached to semi-automatic firearms to make them shoot as quickly as machine guns.

Bump stocks were banned under the Trump administration with bipartisan support after a shooter in Las Vegas used one to spray more than 1,000 rounds into a crowd at a concert, murdering 60 people and injuring hundreds more. As gun control groups and families of mass shooting victims mourned the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, the 21-year-old Rittenhouse went online to share his own thoughts: “Time to go celebrate and buy a bump stock!” he wrote on X.

Rittenhouse became famous in 2020, when he was 17 and fatally shot two Black Lives Matter protesters in Wisconsin. He was acquitted during a criminal trial and now lives in Texas. This month he got a new job as an outreach director for the group Texas Gun Rights, which also took to X after the Supreme Court ruling—to troll. “Next step: Make America Full-Auto again!” the group commented on a post by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control nonprofit, after Everytown warned that the justices’ decision had “put countless lives in danger.”

Though the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stocks under the Trump administration, Donald Trump said Friday night that he vowed to “fully uphold” the Second Amendment, and that the court’s decision should be respected. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, urged Congress to pass a better law that would ban bump stocks once and for all. “Send me a bill and I will sign it immediately,” he wrote on X.

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This is how change happens.

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This investigative reporting takes time too. Months of research. Weeks of writing, editing, and fact checking—and putting together the photography, art, video, and audio that tell the stories in a new way, illuminating new perspectives and voices.

We can afford to take our time because we don’t report to oligarchs or corporations. We report to you, and for you.

And the stakes are high. Democracy is on the defense. We’ve been exposing corruption and scandal for five decades, and this is a pivotal moment in our country’s history. Will democracy prevail? We won’t wait for time to tell—independent journalism is essential for democracy, and we’ll keep doing our part to amplify the free press.

So, we’re asking: Will you join the fight? Mother Jones has been here for 50 years, and we need your support to fuel the future of investigative journalism. Mark our 50th anniversary with a gift of any amount.

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