NRA: Gun Control Laws For Bump Stock Weapons Necessary After Stephen Paddock’s Las Vegas Shooting Spree

According to the NRA, gun control laws may be necessary after the deadly Las Vegas shooting. Nevada officials had confirmed that Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock used several bump fire stock devices to simulate full automatic gunfire with semi-automatic weapons. Although these devices do not directly modify the internal components of semi-automatic guns to illegally become fully automatic, they do allow a shooter to increase the rate of fire at the expense of accuracy.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, bump stock gun modifications had a huge surge in sales following the Vegas mass shooting because people feared they might soon be banned by the government. Already, a White House petition on bump stocks is asking that President Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress should “regulate all devices that simulate automatic weapons or machine guns.”

“Officials have confirmed that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock used a bump fire stock modification to simulate an automatic weapon. Devices like the bump stock, trigger crank, hell-fire trigger systems, BMF trigger activators, the Autoglove, and more are not covered by the 1986 National Firearms Act (NFA),” claims the White House petition. “As such, these gun modifications represent a loophole in existing gun control laws. Manufacturers even advertise that these devices provide ‘full-auto fire without ATF approval, tax stamp or firearm modifications.’ President Donald Trump and Congress should create a new law that regulates these devices so they are federally tracked and require a special permit.”

The National Rifle Association normally stands against any additional state or federal regulations regarding guns, but in this case, they believe new gun control laws may be necessary to prevent future mass shootings in the United States. At the same time, they believe that “banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks,” so they’re also urging Congress to pass a concealed carry gun law at the same time.

“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the National Rifle Association statement on gun control laws said. “[W]e urge Congress to pass National Right-to-Carry reciprocity, which will allow law-abiding Americans to defend themselves and their families from acts of violence.”

House bill H.R. 38, or the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, would amend the federal criminal code to allow a qualified individual to possess and carry a concealed handgun into another state that allows individuals to carry concealed firearms. The bill was introduced at the beginning of 2017 and has hundreds of supporters in the House as of this article’s publishing.

The NRA also highlighted how the “Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions” during his presidency. According to CNN, Kellyanne Conway of the Trump administration blamed both the ATF and former president Barack Obama for not regulating bump fire stocks.

“It was President Obama’s ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, in 2010 that decided not to regulate this device,” Conway said. “That should be part of the conversation and part of the facts that you put before your viewers.”

The bump stock firearm part, and similar types of gun modifications, currently bypass the 1986 National Firearms Act (NFA), which does not allow U.S. civilians to own or transfer full automatic weapons (often popularly referred to as machine guns) unless they were previously manufactured and registered before 1986. It is still possible to apply for a special federal license for owning an automatic weapon, but since the permit is limited to older guns manufactured before May of 1986, purchasing such guns requires buying a resale model. The White House has announced that Trump is open to discussing a bump stock ban and other ideas for gun control laws.

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