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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: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:58PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday June 24 2018, @12:58PM (#697536) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Paddock [wikipedia.org]

    Wikipedia describes it as "the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in United States history". What evidence do you have that he was part of an organization or "the Feds"? Any further investigation into his motive would certainly be a waste of time, since he's dead.

    Any of us with sufficient motivation and a decent net worth (maybe not self-worth) could do what Paddock did. He had the resources to get more guns and book multiple hotel rooms, which isn't possible for your average down in the dumps school shooter. It helps that he was 64 and had real estate money. He could also easily get those weapons into his little base of operations and kill from on high without getting much return fire. It was a good plan if his goal was to maximize his kill count. There are plenty of gun ranges out there that you can train at, and he did the math (handwritten calculations to optimize angle of fire). Practice and preparation makes perfect.

    While most mass killers leave behind some notes, diaries, social media posts, manifestos, witnesses, etc. cluing others into their motives, there's no rule that they need to do so. Don't kiss and tell, don't kill and tell.

    Many SoylentNews users seem to be around retirement age and don't use stuff like Facebook. Could the next Paddock be lurking here?

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