WASHINGTON. Gun stores are selling stock again in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi after Federal regulators failed to file a petition to suspend or terminate an order lifting a ban imposed after 58 people died in Las Vegas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, which hears cases from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, overturned the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ federal ban, ruling in January that only Congress has such authority.

Several other federal appeals courts upheld the ban. As such, stocks—devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire faster—remain illegal in much of the country. The Supreme Court often intervenes in such situations, and the ATF may go there next.

The device replaces the stock, the part held at the shoulder, and allows the gun to quickly slide back and forth and “hit” between the shoulder and the trigger finger.

Groups seeking to reduce gun violence say that by allowing near-continuous shooting, the device goes against a long-standing ban on machine guns.

Michael Cargill, owner of a Central Texas arms factory in Austin, filed a lawsuit to challenge the ban in 2019 against the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a judiciary group that says it protects constitutional liberties, including Second Amendment rights.

They lost in federal court in Austin and before a three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit, one of the nation’s most conservative courts.

The victory came after another hearing, this time before the full 5th constituency.

“It didn’t surprise me,” Cargill said. “I was excited because I felt it was the absolutely right decision.”

The federal government had until Monday to apply for a suspension to prevent the Jan. 6 decision from coming into effect.

After that time limit, the Court of Appeal ordered the lower court to enforce its decision.

“Bump Stocks are now legal in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi,” Cargill tweeted Tuesday.

South Texas College of Law professor Drew Stevenson said it was still possible that the ATF and the Justice Department could appeal to a lower court.

“They can re-contest the case while it is in custody. We’re kind of waiting to see what happens,” he said.

The ATF said they could not comment on the lawsuit. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Jeremiah Cottle, who invented and patented the device he calls the bolt stock, ran his company Slide Fire Solutions in Moran, Texas for eight years prior to the Las Vegas shooting.

“And then the government came for me,” Cottle said.

On October 1, 2017, a gunman in Las Vegas killed 58 people at an outdoor concert and injured hundreds. Fourteen of the shooter’s 22 semi-automatic rifles were equipped with stocks, allowing him to shoot so many visitors in a matter of minutes.

Four months later, a shooter killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Although the shooter did not use a striker, public outcry grew, and then President Donald Trump called for a ban on the device. The ATF quickly complied, issuing its federal rule – a ban – in December 2018.

By then, Slide Fire had closed due to lawsuits over the Las Vegas massacre. RW Arms in Fort Worth took over the sale of the remaining stock.

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Cottle renamed the Slide Fire the American Bump Stock Company and resumed sales on February 17, this time through the bumpstock.com website.

While things are moving slowly.

He sees two main reasons: problems processing credit card payments and uncertainty about how long ownership will remain legal.

“People are afraid of what the government is going to do,” he said.

Its shares are now worth $249, about 15% more than before the ban, due to higher material and labor costs.

Cargill plans to soon sell the devices at its Austin store.

ATF can still enforce the ban outside of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, but the appeals court ruling protects buyers, sellers, and owners in those three states.

“Basically, the ATF can’t enforce the rule in those three states just yet,” Stevenson said.

A rule passed by the ATF after the Vegas shooting equated stock-equipped semi-automatic rifles with fully automatic weapons. Congress banned the possession of assault rifles in 1986.

The Bump Stock Rule, which took effect on March 26, 2019, made it illegal to transfer or own one of the devices. The owners were required to destroy or surrender them.

“In 2019, we destroyed 60,000 units… which amounted to millions of dollars worth of inventory,” Cottle said. “ATF… took them to a recycling plant in Fort Worth.”

The courts have rejected attempts by the former owners to obtain a federal refund after the ban.

Like the 5th Circuit in its ruling, Cottle noted that ten years before the Vegas shooting, the ATF believed that percussion stocks on semi-automatic weapons did not meet the definition of a machine gun.

Stevenson said that heavy shaking makes aiming difficult and therefore less useful for self-defense.

“The two types of people who will want to buy stock are thrill seekers who want a cheap way to simulate machine gun shooting,” he said, and those who “try to spray bullets into the crowd like a mass shooter in Las Vegas.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the NRA’s top-rated gun rights advocate, supported the ban at the time and still is.

“This is something that ordinary athletes or someone… interested in protecting their family or their property are not going to buy,” Kornin said on Thursday. “Obviously we saw in Nevada how it can be used to take the lives of a lot of innocent people. That’s why it worries me.”

The Cargill case could have implications that go beyond the Second Amendment because it could depend on the doctrine of the Supreme Court that courts must obey the agency responsible for enforcing a particular law if its actions are reasonable.

This doctrine, based on the 1984 ruling in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council gives the ATF and other agencies more leeway, Stevenson said, and other district courts have upheld the strike stock ban on that basis.

A split among the appellate courts could force the Supreme Court to hear the case. But the Biden administration may be hesitant to go there and risk a ruling that would weaken the Chevron doctrine.

That would be good for Cargill, which would like the courts to tell the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “You can’t make it mandatory for everyone to get vaccinated, you can’t make it mandatory for everyone to wear a mask. They have no right to do so.”

(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not issued such guidelines, although state and local governments have them. And President Joe Biden has ordered COVID-19 vaccinations for military and federal employees.)

Conservative critics say the Chevron doctrine gives bureaucrats too much power. Cargill said his lawsuit was designed not only to restore stock trading, but also to “go after all agencies” – “like the CDC.”

But regulators need that kind of respect to ensure public safety, Stevenson said.

“It could affect everything from the environment, like pollution laws, to workplace safety laws with OSHA and national highways. [and] Safety regulations in cars,” he said.

Washington correspondent Joseph Morton contributed to this report.