Live updates: Supreme Court bump stocks ban oral arguments

Though the case Wednesday doesn’t involve the Second Amendment, it once again thrusts the fraught debate over guns onto the Supreme Court’s docket as the nation continues to reel from mass shootings. 

It’s also the latest of several important cases this year that will give the court’s 6-3 conservative majority an opportunity to limit the power of federal agencies.

Opponents say tthe Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) went too far in classifying bump stocks as machine guns, especially since the agency had for years said they were not covered by the law.

Opponents of the bump stock rule are raising an issue that has emerged as a defining theme at the Supreme Court this term: How much power federal agencies have to approve federal regulations.

Last month, the justices heard arguments in a case questioning how much deference courts must give those agencies when they approve regulations based a law that’s unclear.

In a separate matter argued in November, several justices appeared skeptical of how the Securities and Exchange Commission brings some enforcement actions for securities fraud, suggesting they could pare back on that agency’s power as well.