Las Vegas Shooter Used 'Bump Stock' For Mass Killing

With 59 dead and over 500 wounded, Las Vegas is bound to shape the political dialog in this country for some time yet to come. To be sure, voices on both sides of the gun debate are revving up for the days and weeks ahead.

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One topic bound to come up will be the legality of bump-stocks since the AP is reporting that the weapons used were fitted with them.

TThe gunman who unleashed hundreds of rounds of gunfire on a crowd of concertgoers in Las Vegas had two “bump-stocks” that could have converted semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic ones, officials said.

The devices have attracted scrutiny in recent years from authorities.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has long railed against them. Several years ago, she told The Associated Press she was concerned about the emergence of new technologies that could retrofit firearms to make them fully automatic.

“This replacement shoulder stock turns a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of 400 to 800 rounds per minute,” she said.

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 purchasing of fully automatic weapons has been significantly restricted in the U.S. since the 1930s.

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The AP failed to discuss how long bump-stocks have been around, but they’re not particularly new to the firearms scene. They’ve been around for years now, with no other incidents of being used by maniacs.

These devices are perfectly legal at the federal level. They’re also legal in the state of Nevada where the 64-year-old retired accountant and professional gambler decided to snuff out the lift from 59 individuals and kill hundreds more.

Undoubtedly, there will be those asking why these devices are legal for sale. There will be pushes to outlaw bump-stocks, or at least heavily restrict them. Pressure may be put on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to redefine automatic weapon in some manner, thus bypassing Congress.

In fact, my money is on all of those happening and then some. A new assault weapon ban is probably in the works as well.

It won’t matter to many that these stocks have been purchased for years with no issue. It won’t matter that there are tens of thousands of these, at least, in circulation at the moment and there was never an incident until Sunday. None of that will matter because some people won’t be happy until they complete eradicate our sacred right to keep and bear arms.

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The bump-stock may well be the first casualty, assuming the jackals get their way, but it won’t be the last. Not by a long shot. They’ll keep pushing to take away the “evil black rifles” from us, then they’ll come after our “sniper rifles” and handguns. They’ll relegate the right to keep and bear arms to a privilege we’ll have to beg our betters for.

What do you think? Should gun owners offer up bump-stocks as a sacrifice to appease the angry gun grabbers, or should we stand and fight, refusing to give an inch?

I know what I say, which is to hold the line, but what about you?

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