Bump stock ban a good, small first step

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said on Wednesday that it had finalised a rule reclassifying so-called bump stocks – the devices that can make a semiautomatic rifle fire nearly as quickly a fully automatic weapon – as machineguns, which makes it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess them. The agency said a year ago it had the authority to reclassify the devices, and President Trump, in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, directed the ATF to speed up the process. Wednesday’s announcement – a rare bit of good news from the Trump administration – makes it official.

As welcome as this new rule is, it will do little to corral our national problem with gun violence. Getting rid of bump stocks simply trims the outer edges of potential carnage – presuming that the people who have the devices in their personal arsenals follow the new rule and get rid of them.

The new rule doesn’t seem to add any new enforcement mechanisms, and no agency maintains any sort of records on who owns such devices. So we shouldn’t be lulled into thinking this small, sane step will make a big difference in our collective safety. But it is progress. And the president deserves credit for sticking with his promise to find a way to ban bump stocks. We urge him to go one better and work with Congress on a law banning them outright.