It’s being reported now that a device called a ‘bump-stock’ may have been used by the Vegas shooter to convert his semi-automatic rifles into something akin to the rapid-fire fully automatic versions. And it’s apparently completely legal:
AP – The man who unleashed hundreds of rounds of gunfire on a crowd of concertgoers in Las Vegas had two accessories that could have allowed his semi-automatic rifles to fire rapidly and continuously, as if they were fully automatic weapons, officials said.
Though legally and widely available, the so-called “bump stocks” have attracted scrutiny from authorities and lawmakers in recent years.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has long expressed concern over the availability of such accessories, said Tuesday that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock modified at least one of his weapons with a bump stock device, but she did not elaborate.
“Individuals are able to purchase bump fire stocks for less than $200 and easily convert a semi-automatic weapon into a firearm that can shoot between 400 and 800 rounds per minute and inflict absolute carnage,” she said, calling for a ban on their sale.
A semi-automatic weapon requires one trigger pull for each round fired. With a fully automatic firearm, one trigger pull can unleash continuous rounds until the magazine is empty. The bump-stock devices work by manipulating the trigger mechanism extremely rapidly, far faster than a person could do so without them.
Authorities found two bump stocks in Paddock’s hotel room, two officials familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press. They are investigating whether those items were used to modify weapons used in the massacre, according to the officials, who were briefed by law enforcement and spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still unfolding. Sheriff Joseph Lombardo hasn’t said whether they played a role in the rampage.
Here’s a video of some girl on youtube demonstrating this ‘bump stock’:
If there’s a bone that Republicans could throw at Democrats on gun control, I suspect it might be making devices like this illegal. If fully-automatic rifles are illegal to own without a special license from the ATF, then it will likely seem reasonable to many to ban these type of devices from being manufactured or sold in the United States.
I don’t know if they will do that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they go down that road.