Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) introduced a bill to prohibit the sale of bump stock devices and other mechanisms which enable semi-automatic firearms to effectively operate as fully automatic weapons. A bump stock was used during the October 1, 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, resulting in the deaths of 58 victims.
“The deadliest shooting in modern American history was due in large part to bump stocks, a device designed to inflict the most number of casualties in the shortest amount of time,” said Cortez Masto. “Our public spaces are becoming war zones because it is legal to simply walk into a store and buy a device that turns a semi-automatic weapon into a full-on machine gun. Congress must act immediately and ban bump stocks as we work to help save lives and prevent senseless gun violence.”
“Fully automatic weapons have been justifiably illegal for civilian use for over 30 years. Any device which circumvents that law by increasing a weapon’s rate of fire from semi-automatic to fully automatic ought to be illegal as well,” said Flake. “I am encouraged by the president’s directive to the Department of Justice to regulate these devices, but a temporary regulatory fix is no substitute for permanent law.”
“There’s no possible defense for anyone owning bump stock devices or any other devices that take a semi-automatic firearm and allow it to be used as an automatic firearm,” said Heinrich. “We need pragmatic gun law reforms to end mass shootings that are devastating our communities and this is one of them.”
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