The NRA’s own shooting range reportedly does not allow bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to shoot individual rounds of ammunition at a rate similar to fully-automatic machine guns.
Politico reported the news Thursday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the range.
Though the NRA Range’s website does not explicitly mention bump stocks, the range does not allow fully automatic weapons, whose firing rate bump stocks aim to replicate.
The modifying devices, which can be purchased legally for a few hundred dollars or less, were found on several firearms in the hotel room of the gunman who killed 59 people Sunday night in Las Vegas, according to the FBI.
Bump stocks use the recoil from semi-automatic rifles, which shoot one bullet every time the trigger is pulled, in order to power a bumping motion that in turn pulls the trigger again. Each expelled bullet technically still corresponds to a single pull of the trigger, but the trigger is pulled at a rapid pace.
As some congressional Republicans began to signal openness to reviewing bump stocks, conservatives have made it a point to bring up that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives decided during the Obama administration that it would allow the sale of the devices.
A few Republican members of Congress have suggested regulating or outlawing the devices following Sunday’s massacre.
No. Wrong. That’s the wingnut-friendly framing. Or “lie” as sane people call it.
ATF decided during the Obama administration that it lacked statutory authority to ban them. Because turns out the executive branch can only execute laws that Congress passes and, back in those days, rule of law was still a thing.
Of course it was Obama’s fault. I hear he was also responsible for Katrina, the energy crisis and Pearl Harbor.
The same folks who decry the overreach of Obama’s Executive Orders now try to blame his administration for underreaching. Hypocrites.
Thank you! Please, TPM, pay attention!
Also 9/11.