PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Op-Ed Actually Thinks Bump Stock Ban May Reduce Gun Violence :: 12/13/2018
I can’t imagine what it was like to be at that concern in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017. You’re there, having a good time, and then the shots ring out. A lot of shots.
But since then, bump stocks have been in the news an awful lot. A device that almost no one knew about outside of the gun community and that few people actually owned and used with any regularity was suddenly the single greatest threat to our nation since the Red Menace. Something simply had to be done and be done right away!
Now, it seems that the short attention span of the American left actually thinks banning these devices may somehow keep people safe.
The Trump Administration says it will soon place a federal ban on bump stocks, the gun attachments that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire faster. Ten states banned the plastic device after it was used by a gunman in Las Vegas to shoot and kill 58 people in 2017.
Without any enhancement, semi-automatic rifles fire one bullet per trigger pull. Bump stocks harness the gun’s recoil to speed up the rate of fire, allowing the gun to pump out bullets faster.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), bump stocks “turn semi-automatic guns into illegal machine guns.” Since 2010, the DOJ says, up to 520,000 bump stocks have been purchased in the U.S.
Whether the bans help to decrease gun violence has yet to be seen. But given that they’re now in place in more than one-fifth of the country, bump stock bans represent a new wave of gun safety regulation.
Anyone with even a hint of awareness would recognize one very important fact about bump-stock bans, and that’s how they will have zero impact on gun violence in this country.
You see, prior to Las Vegas, we hadn’t seen bump stocks used in crimes. More importantly, though, despite the carnage of Las Vegas, we still don’t see bump stocks used in crimes.
When it comes to public safety, they’re a non-issue.
The fact that it’s even acknowledged as a possibility just shows how the left will contort reality to try and pretend that everything they want to do will create a meaningful impact on public safety. But, when that impact fails to materialize, they’ll merely argue that they didn’t go far enough. They’ll demand something else, and then another something else, and so on.
This is especially true when it comes to bump stocks, since ridding the world of bump stocks–if, hypothetically, such a thing could be accomplished–wouldn’t actually stop bump firing. A bump stock merely facilitates a type of firing that is also accomplished with things like belt loops, rubber bands, and shoe strings.
Despite this, bump fire isn’t a factor in criminal activity. Why is that? Who knows?
However, the story does give us a glimpse into the mind of the gun grabber.
“We legislate things all the time as a society to say this is wrong,” [president of Connecticut Against Gun Violence Jeremy] Stein said. “This is not acceptable, and I think in this case, this is one of those areas where we were saying there was no legitimate purpose for a bump stock.”
“It’s not used for hunting. It’s not used for target practice. It’s not used for self-defense. It’s not used for home defense. We don’t need them on the other side. It was responsible for killing 58 people — let’s not have these.”
In their mind, it’s up to us to provide legitimate purposes for us to own these devices, rather than for them to illustrate a compelling reason to restrict them.
It’s about control versus freedom, and for them, it has to be. After all, they can’t provide a compelling reason to restrict bump stocks, even with Las Vegas, and they know it.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
