What a “bump-stock” is and what it is not…

Rohm Emanuel, while at President Obama’s side in the White House once said: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”  In typical fashion, after a tragic and horrific attack—long before the facts are known, we hear the familiar drum beat of “Gun-Control.” What’s the sacrificial offering today?  BUMP-STOCKS!!!

Some facts to help you understand this piece of hardware that the news will not tell you:

1. The slide-fire or bump-stock, was created to help disabled people continue to use their firearms with their limitation of mobility and dexterity. It was reviewed and approved for market and sale by the Obama administration. Some have found it as a novelty to set it up so that a “string-of-fire” can be performed…that mimics full-auto fire.
2. It does NOT modify a weapon in any way. Modifying a weapon for full-auto fire is, has been, and will be illegal by the 1936 Firearms Act. Pulling the trigger on a semi-auto rifle…as fast as you can…is not and will not be illegal.
3. By using a “cradle” piece of plastic, the rifle is supported and allowed to move with recoil. To fire, you use the shoulder to advance the rifle forward until the trigger contacts the finger, instead of the typical way we pull a trigger. The rebound of the rifle in the cradle returns it to a position where the finger is waiting. IF you can hold your finger in just the right spot, the rebound will advance the rifle into the finger and the fire sequence is repeated. This does NOT allow the gun to be fire any faster than it could in standard semi-auto configuration using your finger to pull the trigger.
4. If you move or adjust your finger, the sequence stops. It is VERY hard to hold everything still enough to effectively maintain a string of fire with any consistency. Even with advanced training, to engage multiple targets and transition from one to another while maintaining the perfect position is nearly impossible.
5. Bump-stocks are notorious for introducing “stove-pipe” and other malfunctions when attempting to fire in a continuous string. That’s because the semi-auto rifle was designed to be held firm when the cycling process is occurring.
6. Aligning the sights and pressing the shoulder forward for one round allows for good aiming. Trying to align the sights while a string of fire is performed, and the gun is jumping around in the cradle, is impossible. Meaning, that while it is entertaining to run off several rounds in quick succession, it is HIGHLY ineffective if your goal is to hit a target. This is why no serious operator of the AR (or other semi-auto rifles) platform would use this device. Police won’t use them. Military won’t use them. Only people that need them for physical reasons and clowns that think it’s cool to try and mimic full-auto fire use a device such as this.

Do I think that bump-stocks are a good tool? Not really…but is that all it takes to support the ban of them?  I do think some folks find them helpful that have a disability. Do some folks use them other than intended to mimic full-auto fire? Sure, but this is not inherently more dangerous than a person simply pulling the trigger as fast as they can. I am certain that bump-stocks did not make it possible to kill more people. In fact, if it is found they were used, the sloppy way they would have required a shooter to aim may have resulted in more missed targets. In addition, the inevitable jams created by the bump-stock would have kept the rifle out of firing more often. I’m not suggesting that they saved lives, only that if they were used, it did not make the damage worse. Allowing the media, politicians, and hysterical public misstate and misrepresent what these are, is shameful. To offer this piece of hardware up to the anti-gun lobby is a bad policy. I get it…live to fight another day. Meanwhile, the fools feel vindicated in their rhetoric and the root problems are never addressed.