MAKING THEM DEADLIER IS SIMPLE – TOO SIMPLE

A KNIFE, an Allen wrench and a few spare minutes are all anyone needs to turn a regular semiautomatic rifle into a weapon capable of firing 900 rounds in a minute .

Videos (such as in screen grab inset) posted on YouTube show the startling ease with which Stephen Paddock was able to convert 12 rifles into near machine guns and kill at least 58 people. Another 527 were shot, trampled or hit by shrapnel.

Paddock used a device called a bump fire stock or slider stock, which retails from between $100 to $300.

A debate has begun about whether to ban the devices following the horror of Sunday night.

All you have to do is pull off the factory-issued stock, pry open the base of the pistol grip and remove it with the Allen wrench.

Wriggle the grip off the gun while carefully leaving the safety undisturbed, then slide the bump fire stock on. Couple that with a high-capacity magazine, which can carry as many as 100 rounds, and you’re set to unleash an act of terror.

The modification of the weapon is perfectly legal.

“It certainly looked like full auto, and certainly felt like full auto but according to the ATF (federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), it wasn’t,” said a man in a 2011 video demonstrating the device.

Graham Rayman