Rep. Steve Scalise, a Republican who was almost killed earlier this year when a supporter of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign opened fire on a GOP softball practice, said the Las Vegas shooting only “fortified” his support for Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
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On Thursday, the National Rifle Association wrote in a statement that it was open to considering amending current law surrounding bump stocks, but the powerful lobby suggested that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could likely handle it through administrative changes rather than legislative means.
“I own a lot of guns and as a hunter and sportsman”.
Bump stocks, a device legal in some states that can be installed on a sem-automatic weapon to allow it to fire more rounds per minute, was used by a gunman in a Las Vegas shooting on Sunday that killed 58 people and injured more than 500 more. He had 12 rifles outfitted with bump stocks among the arsenal of weapons in his hotel room.
The Virginia Citizen’s Defense League understands why, saying bump stocks aid in recreational shooting. “That’s right, Obama’s ATF”.
The device can be slid onto the back-end of a gun and uses the power of the recoil to fire ammo more rapidly. “Now they know who to blame”. On automatic weapons, the trigger has to be pulled and held only once to fire off several rounds.
“My reaction was that this was all created to kill or injure as many people as possible as quickly as possible, and that’s the reason why automatic weapons are generally not available”, Cornyn said on Thursday.
“It’s a product that you add to a gun that has already been made that makes it shoot faster”, Hyatt said.
“It’s fun… We’re opposed to them trying to restrict these things”, said Philip Van Cleave. However bump stocks, which were first developed to help disabled people to shoot weapons, are now considered a part and are not regulated as firearms.
Though legally and widely available, the so-called “bump stocks” have attracted scrutiny from authorities and lawmakers in recent years.
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Since Congress passed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act in 1986, it has been extremely hard for civilians to buy new, fully automatic weapons, which reload automatically and fire continuously as long as the trigger is depressed.
