Fast-fire gun tool latest to skirt law
Advocates say device ban won’t deter industry
The Las Vegas mass killer’s use of a device that can turn semiautomatic rifles into virtual machine guns prompted a shift in tone by Republican leaders and the powerful National Rifle Association, who on Thursday suggested they might be open to restricting the devices despite their usually rigid stances on gun rights.
But gun-control proponents cautioned that the emergence of “bump stocks” — which a Nevada man used to convert 12 rifles into rapid-fire weapons, increasing the number of dead and wounded at a country music concert below his hotel-suite perch — marked only the latest effort to circumvent safety regulations while ramping up the firepower of legal guns.
Time and again, the advo-
cates said, inventive manufacturers have come up with workarounds, often add-on products like bump stocks, that subvert the intent of legislators who pass firearms restrictions. It’s a game of whack-a-mole that’s been particularly energetic in California — a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the country.
“The gun industry for a long time has expended a lot of energy to devise new increasingly dangerous ways to take human life,” said Ari Freilich, an attorney with the San Franciscobased Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “It requires policymakers to stop and close loopholes and protect human life.”
A prime case in point is California’s continuing effort to plug leaks in its assault-weapons ban, which was passed in 1989 and outlawed sales of a roster of high-powered guns as well as other firearms that have certain components. Notably, a rifle that accepts a detachable magazine, which speeds up reloading, cannot include any of a number of features including a forward grip and a flash suppressor.
But then came the workaround — a “bullet button” that allowed for the quick release of a magazine with a tool, such as the tip of a bullet. Because a tool was required, the rifle was no longer detachable under the state law. So it wasn’t an assault weapon.
In 2016, the Legislature went after the work-around. It passed a measure banning bullet buttons, months after the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino in which Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, quickly reloaded semiautomatic rifles as they unleashed more than 100 rounds at a community center holiday party in 2015 that left 14 dead.
Under the law, California residents can keep weapons they own with bullet buttons, but they must register them.
But even as the ban on bullet buttons became effective, weapons makers were busy bringing to market several new devices capable of releasing a gun’s magazine, which they say comply with state law. One such add-on, the Patriot Mag Release, has been dubbed “bullet button reloaded” by its inventor.
Gun sellers have also long sold firearm parts — unfinished guns — that they say are legal but can be used to assemble an illegal weapon, Freilich said. Earlier this year, San Francisco sued five gun companies, saying they were violating the state’s ban on the sale of high-capacityammunition magazines by offering magazine “repair kits.” But the kits contained all of the parts necessary to build the outlawed magazine, the city said.
“It’s a constant effort to keep up with, and affect policy, against these weapons,” Freilich said. “We have to continue to be aware of, and respond effectively to those innovations.”
While California has paid close attention to the workarounds, other states have largely allowed the introduction of the devices.
The shooting from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino was a nightmare that some gun-control advocates had anticipated. A dozen of the shooter’s weapons were equipped with stocks that allowed for the simulation of rapid fire with a single squeeze of the trigger, even though machine guns are largely banned under federal law.
The bump stocks were legal under Nevada law because they did not alter the gun’s internal trigger mechanism, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, DCalif., introduced a bill Tuesday targeting bump stocks and similar devices like trigger cranks that effectively turn firearms into Gatling guns. “The only reason to fire so many rounds so fast is to kill people,” she said.
The NRA said federal regulators should consider tightening rules on devices like bump stocks, though Feinstein said legislation — not regulation — was the answer.
“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the group said in a statement.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said a conversation about a ban is “something we’re very open to.”
California outlawed devices like bump stocks in 1993 under a law that bans making guns fire like fully automatic weapons — a law with broad language that doesn’t allow for work-arounds. Freilich hopes the law in California will be a model for federal legislation.
“I hope we learn more from this tragedy than simply to ban bump stocks,” he said.