R.I. officials introduce bill to ban bump stocks

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island legislators have taken up the call for ending the sale of devices making semi-automatic rifles capable of rapid shooting in the wake of continuing acts of mass shootings.

Sen. James C. Sheehan (D-Dist. 36, Narragansett, North Kingstown) and Rep. Robert E. Craven (D-Dist. 32, North Kingstown) introduced legislation in the General Assembly that would outlaw the modification of semi-automatic firearms that in effect convert the weapon into a machine gun.

The bill (2018-S 2271, 2018-H 7075) would make possession or use of semi-automatic weapon rapid fire devices including bump stocks, binary triggers or trigger cranks punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and/or a $10,000 fine.

“The only purpose that these devices serve is to turn a semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic, military style weapon,” said Sheehan. “There is no legitimate reason to own these devices either for hunting or defense. Their existence has brought untold sorrow to many and this law would effectively ban them in Rhode Island,” Sheehan said.

The so-called bump stock attachments allow a shooter to fire a semi-automatic weapon with great rapidity. It replaces a rifle’s standard stock, freeing the weapon to slide back and forth rapidly, harnessing the energy from the kickback or recoil of the weapon as it fires to in turn fire the next shot and the next in a rapid firing of the weapon’s ammunition.

“With the tragic and horrific events in Las Vegas demonstrating the powerful lethality that bump stocks can facilitate, we must make the law clear that Rhode Island will not tolerate these dangerous tools of death,” said Craven.

“Currently there is some ambiguity to whether or not applying a bump stock to one’s weapon is legal in Rhode Island, but it is still legal to purchase one. This bill will end that practice, making the sale and possession of bump stocks, even if they are not affixed to a weapon, illegal and punishable by the full extent of the law,” Craven said.

In last year’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, 12 of the rifles in the gunman’s possession were modified with a bump stock, allowing the weapon to fire about 90 shots in 10 seconds – a much faster rate than the AR-15 style assault rifle used by the Orlando Nightclub shooter, which fired about 24 shots in nine seconds, according to Daniel Trafford, a general assembly spokesman.

The legislation filed by the general assembly members would also ban binary triggers, which is a device designed to fire one round on the pull of the trigger and another round upon release of the trigger, effectively doubling the weapon’s shooting capabilities, according to Trafford. A trigger crank is another actuator that attaches to the trigger of a semi-automatic weapon and causes the weapon to fire by turning the crank handle, he noted.

“And while the shooting at the high school in Parkland, Fla., did not involve any of these firing modifications, it does serve as an example of how much worse the tragedy could’ve been if any of these devices had been utilized,” Sheehan said.