The Story
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has introduced the Automatic Gun Fire Prevention Act, which would ban the sale, manufacture, or importation of various devices used to allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at the speeds characteristic of automatics.
The Urgency
The perpetrator in the Las Vegas massacre, Stephen Paddock used so-called “bump stocks,” devices that cause a gun to rock back and forth when fired, “bumping” the trigger, producing the rat-a-tat effect reported by witnesses. Civilian ownership of automatic weapons has long been a crime, but both semi-automatics and devices for “souping them up” are legal.
The Thing to Know
Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, has denounced efforts to ban gunstocks. “We see this as an item that is certainly protected by the Second Amendment,” he said. The NRA has not yet been heard from on the point.
