This one will pretty much be a slam dunk, right? Unlike almost all other gun-control demands in the aftermath of mass shootings, this proposal actually does have something to do with the incident that it addresses:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a longtime advocate of stricter gun control measures, introduced a bill Wednesday that would ban the sale and possession of ‘bump-stock’ equipment and other devices that essentially turn a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic one.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) told reporters Tuesday that multiple bump-stocks were found in the hotel room used by the shooter, who opened fire during the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival Sunday, killing 58 people and injuring over 500 others.
According to a copy of the bill text provided to ABC, it would go into effect 180 days after its passage.
“It shall be unlawful for any person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a trigger crank, a bump-fire device, or any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment, or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semi-automatic rifle but not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machinegun,” the bill states.
Jazz threw himself on this grenade, so to speak, earlier this morning by calling this a common-sense compromise in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre. Feinstein’s bill, at least at this stage, seems narrowly tailored to fit those parameters, and does address one key part of the mass shooting, which was the rapid fire across a wide range. Clark County investigators and the ATF found a dozen bump-stock devices attached to normally legal semi-automatic rifles, which allowed the madman to have de facto machine guns in his hands. The massacre itself is an object lesson as to why we have all but banned machine guns from private ownership, save for an extremely limited exception that is constantly monitored.
by Ed Morrissey
