I am beyond thankful that my brother and sister in law who have loved each other through 22 years of the highs and lows of marriage did not suffer through having their only son injured or worse on their anniversary.

My nephew is a junior at Virginia State University which recently endured a mass shooting.

The profound relief of knowing my nephew is safe does not erase the knowledge that campus environments are, for horrifying moments, becoming active kill zones.

In a matter of seconds, modern gunfire can transform a routine weekend move-in into a terrifying reality directly shaped by the regulations governing weapon lethality. 

The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court to overturn the federal ban on bump stocks has reignited a critical debate regarding public safety and gun policy in America.

In a six to three ruling in the case Garland v. Cargill, the Court determined that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its legal authority when it classified bump stocks as machine guns.

The majority opinion focused strictly on statutory interpretation, concluding that because a bump stock requires the trigger to mechanically reset and depress for every shot, it does not fit the historical 1934 definition of an automatic weapon.

While the ruling turned on technicalities rather than constitutional gun rights, its real-world implications are deeply unsettling to many because the real – world data are clear.

Many concur that bump stocks do indeed turn less lethal guns into functional machine guns.

The Department of Justice is amending the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to clarify that bump stock-type devices—meaning ‘‘bump fire’’ stocks, slide-fire devices, and devices with certain similar characteristics—are ‘‘machineguns’’ as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger.

Federal Register / Vol. 83, No. 246 / Wednesday, December 26, 2018 / Rules and Regulations

The federal ban was originally implemented by the first Trump administration following the horrific 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival, where a gunman used bump stock-equipped devices to fire more than one thousand rounds in just eleven minutes.

That attack resulted in sixty fatalities and hundreds of injuries, marking it as the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

Gun safety advocates reasonably fear that reintroducing these devices to the market will inevitably increase the lethality of future mass casualty events.

The frightening potential of rapid-fire weaponry hit incredibly close to home for my family during the recent shooting at Virginia State University.

On August 15, 2026, violence erupted outside a campus residence hall, leaving five people including 1 student injured just as co-eds prepared for the upcoming autumn semester on “move-in-weekend.”

Authorities have since arrested a nineteen-year-old suspect but noted that multiple shooters were likely involved.

Witnesses including incoming freshmen reported being jolted awake by what sounded like multiple gunshots echoing in rapid succession through the campus.

For me, however, this tragedy is not just a headline.

My nephew, by God’s great grace, was off campus when the gunfire began. With his hard earned summer job money he was away enjoying a brief vacation at a nearby beach town ahead of the first day of school.

Also, at the same time, my brother and sister-in-law were happily celebrating their twenty-second wedding anniversary. Well deserved family celebrations could have instantly turned into a newsreel-worthy tragedy.

While investigators have not, to date, confirmed whether a bump stock was utilized by the suspects in the Virginia State University shooting, the reported sheer volume of rapid gunfire perfectly illustrates the stakes of wrong headed legislative schemes to not limit their sale.

As of this writing no deaths have been reported at VSU, however, when devices designed to maximize human casualties are readily accessible, every crowded public space becomes a potential target.

This close call serves as a stark reminder that behind the dry, technical arguments of judicial architecture are the lives of innocent students, families, and communities.

Is this back-to-school, America? Do we have the political will to keep students of all ages safe? If this is not what we want, what shall we do to change this apparent new normal?

What are your thoughts?

~Kimberly