Today marks the one-year anniversary of the horrific Las Vegas gun massacre, which was facilitated by a device known as a “bump stock”:
Bump stocks figured prominently in the Las Vegas shooting. A report issued in January by Las Vegas police revealed that Stephen Paddock, who carried out the massacre, had 22 semi-automatic rifles with him in the hotel room overlooking the concert, and 14 of them were equipped with bump stocks. They allow a rifle to work almost like a machine gun, firing continuously with a single pull of the trigger.
Bump stocks work by altering the relationship between the trigger finger and the weapon. Without a bump stock, the rifle remains stationary and the trigger finger must be moved to fire a round. With a bump stock, once the firing begins, the weapon moves and the finger remains stationary.
How heinous are bump stocks? So heinous that even the Trump Justice Department is moving ahead with a ban on these devices. And even “[t]he National Rifle Association indicated that it will not fight the proposed ban.” Finally, note that an overwhelming 82% of Americans support banning bump stocks, including nearly three-fourths of gun owners.
So how extreme do you have to be in order to SUPPORT bump stocks remaining legal? Based on his response in a debate last week, you’d have to be Denver Riggleman (R, VA05)-level extreme. check this out.
That’s right, according to 5th CD Republican nominee Denver Riggleman, it wasn’t the bump stock that was responsible for the huge number of dead and wounded in Las Vegas last year – completely ignoring the fact that the shooter, if he couldn’t have shot that many bullets that rapidly, absolutely could NOT have killed and wounded that many people. Period. So right there, Riggleman is both completely wrong and also as extreme as you can get. Riggleman elaborates on his lunacy, saying he’s “not going to change anything with the Second Amendment,” which of course is absurd as well, as the Supreme Court has very much changed the interpretation of the (poorly written, but clearly intended to be applied in the context of no standing army, well-regulated militias, and firepower no more powerful than muskets) Second Amendment over the years.
In sum, extremist Riggleman concludes, “for me no assault weapon ban, we’re not going to ban bump-stocks.” Yeah, tell that to these people, Mr. Riggleman…
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
