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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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday June 24 2018, @06:38PM (5 children)
Remember that mass murder in France a few years ago? The one where the guy used a truck to kill 80+ people? 50% more than the Vegas shooter.
Or Oklahoma City, that was what 120+ people? No guns used there either.
NY in 2001? Again, no guns used.
My point is if someone decides to kill a lot of people they will find a way to do it. Period.
Almost half the mass murders in the last 80 years have not involved guns, and most of the ones that did use guns actually had fewer deaths than those that didn't.
We have limited resources, we can play "whack a mole" and try to ban everything used to commit murders or we can focus resources on changing the people and cultures that cause these people to go into the deep end. Doing things like banning the tool used to murder doesn't work. As you point out Brittan has actually had serious suggestions to ban chef's knives and just about any knife with a sharp point because of the increasing number of murders using knives.
Change the culture and you not only decrease gun homicides but all homicides.
Which is more important to you; getting rid of guns or preventing murders? Doing the former may help the latter but doing the latter makes the former unnecessary.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 24 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)
yeah dude should have driven a truck off the hotel roof instead!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:32AM
Actually he had a pilot's license. Had he rented a Cesna and loaded it up with gas cans and some sort of incendiary device (just to make sure), he probably would have been more effective. Heck, if he'd just rented a Ryder and started driving through the crowd he probably would have done more damage. Thankfully, he decided to go the overly complicated / less effective route and thus managed to do less damage than he could have.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday June 24 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)
So, to extend that principle, even if there's been a plague of house burglaries in my area, there's no point in me upgrading my door and window locks because they won't prevent a fraudster hacking my bank account?
Don't wear a crash helmet on a motorbike because it won't stop you breaking your back?
Don't wear a hat because it won't keep your feet dry?
You're preventing a ridiculous straw man: "ban guns and we won't have any ore murders!" said absolutely no one at all, ever. If you've got some magical solution to "changing the culture" so that nobody commits murder then please share - odds are that the solution (a) won't work and (b) has a vastly bigger chilling effect on our civil liberties than forgoing the right to buy guns at the local Kwickie Mart.... but, hey, put some flesh on the bones and I'll give it an open mind (unless it involves Jesus).
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday June 25 2018, @03:33AM
So if you don't want to ban guns to cut down on murder, it sounds like you are just trying to fuck with people who own guns for no reason whatsoever. That makes you sort of a dick.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 25 2018, @05:55PM
If you need to go back 2 decades to find an anecdote that can compete with events from 2 weeks ago then you're kind of proving the opposite point.