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posted by martyb on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the skirting-existing-laws dept.

The Center for American Progress reports

Before Stephen Paddock opened fire at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip last October, killing 58 and wounding hundreds, most Americans probably hadn't heard of bump-fire stocks--add-ons that lets a semiautomatic rifle fire as quickly as a machine gun. Until that mass shooting, they were a novelty known only among firing-range enthusiasts and Cool Gun YouTube.

Within months of Las Vegas, lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation[1] to outlaw the devices, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF, announced plans to ban them through regulation.[2]

But gun control advocates warn bump stocks are just one part of a much bigger problem. A flood of new gun technologies is pushing the envelope on what a civilian can legally own, skirting laws that have kept the most dangerous weapons off the street for decades.

[...] Weapons like machine guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles and shotguns are regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934 and subsequent amendments. To own one of those weapons, a civilian has to go through a lengthy approval process and pay a special tax. The job of deciding whether a gun falls under NFA's restrictions falls to ATF.

Gun manufacturers have used the law's technicalities to create guns that are just as powerful, and deadly, as restricted weapons but without the added tax and strict regulations.

Take the SAINT, by Springfield Armory. It's an AR-15 with a 30-round magazine and a 7.5-inch barrel. That's shorter than the legal rifle length under federal law. But instead of a shoulder stock, the SAINT has a "stabilizing brace" or "forearm brace"--a device designed to attach to a shooter's forearm for one-handed firing rather than resting against their shoulder. By ATF's definition, the SAINT is a pistol, not a rifle, because it isn't meant to be fired from the shoulder. So anyone who can pass a federal background check can buy one online for $989.

[...] Stabilizing braces aren't the only new gun tech to skirt around the National Firearms Act. Franklin Armory's Binary Trigger System fires two rounds with every shot--one when the trigger is depressed and one when it's released, doubling the rate of fire. Like bump stocks and stabilizing braces, binary triggers aren't currently regulated under the National Firearms Act.

In one YouTube video, a man uses a binary trigger to fire a 30-round magazine in less than five seconds. In another, a binary trigger beats out a fully-automatic weapon.

[1] Bogus link in TFA. Fixed in TFS.
[2] Content is behind scripts.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:50AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @11:50AM (#697519)

    He's not saying that no violent crime exists, just that it is so much lower than we have here in the US that your only retort is to purposely misconstrue his comment. And nice "immigrant boogie man" straw man. Isn't there a Trump JOI video you should be watching?

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:04PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:04PM (#697525) Journal

    Misconstrue? Really? Various people from Europe and the UK try to paint the US as a bunch of savages, because we have higher crime statistics than they do. They ignore, or try to ignore, the fact that ALL OF THE US has crime statistics similar to ALL OF EUROPE. If we can cherry pick statistics from one small state or another, that state's statistics look as good as the best of European states.

    And, again, within a relatively small region with a homogenous population, crime statistics are pretty low. That is a fact of life.

    When the Europeans and the British get their act together, and bring all of European crime statistics significantly lower than US crime statistics, then we can talk.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:16PM (1 child)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:16PM (#697714) Journal

      Misconstrue? Really? Various people from Europe and the UK try to paint the US as a bunch of savages, because we have higher crime statistics than they do.

      Don't think they are trying, Runaway; they are succeeding, in spades, because of these things called "facts". You Hillbilly Savage, you!

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 24 2018, @08:04PM

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday June 24 2018, @08:04PM (#697680) Journal

    He's not saying that no violent crime exists, just that it is so much lower than we have here in the US

    So what? There are differences in history and culture all over the world. And crime rates vary totally unrelated to "culture". (Unless, of course, you, like He, insist that the crime rates is the definition of culture.

    The brutality of British rule over history, at home and abroad, has raised a culture of subservient people, afraid to challenge the government. The US is just the opposite.

    Did you somehow forget "The Troubles"?

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.