Las Vegas Shooter: Guns Used
After the initial shock and horror, investigators have been focusing on the details. They’re trying to uncover the full dynamic of the crime. Many ordinary people are no doubt also wondering what could possibly have triggered this violent episode. Thus, web searches such as “the Las Vegas shooter guns used” and “Stephen Paddock guns used” have been popular.
Indeed, one of the most terrifying details is that Stephen Paddock had no fewer than 47 weapons. Photos taken from the hotel room from which Paddock killed 58 people in Las Vegas on Sunday, October 1 revealed several assault rifles. The police have also revealed that one of Stephen Paddock’s residences had dozens of weapons and thousands of rounds of munition. Adding these to the literal arsenal of 23 discovered in his fateful Mandala Bay hotel room in Las Vegas, from where he shot against the crowd, Paddock had nothing short of an arsenal for a war.
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Twelve of the firearms discovered at the hotel were modified with gun parts available in Anytown, U.S.A. with so-called bump stock. What is bump stock and how does bump stock work?
It might be useful to first consider the NRA gun control efforts. The National Rifle Association (NRA) became a household name thanks to one of its longest spokesmen, Hollywood actor Charlton Heston, serving as the voice of the powerful pro-gun lobby. The NRA has succeeded in imposing the idea that the ability of Americans to own and carry firearms represents a fundamental freedom. Indeed, they see it as a duty of citizenship.
NRA Gun Control History
“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun”. That’s the motto that sums up the NRA’s gun control history. However, the organization can count on four-million members and 11,000 instructors and has become one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. Needless to say, it has proven its ability to influence U.S. policy. The NRA was founded in 1871 by a lawyer Captain George Wood Wingate and newspaper editor William Conant Church.
The organization has focused its gun lobbying activity mainly on hunting and shooting. But since 1968, it has taken on a much larger lobbying role. It has promoted, if not quite yet imposed, the idea that the right to own and carry firearms is a fundamental freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
For the past two decades, it has been able to block any initiative to tighten firearm legislation. This political lobbying in the legislative assemblies of states, but also in the Congress, the President’s office, and the courts and is funded by donors, who might include the arms industry. If you search “NRA gun control Obama,” it will be clear that even the prior President succumbed to NRA pressure. One of the areas where the NRA won over Obama was the legalization of bump stock.
How Does Bump Fire Stock Work?
Bump stock, technically “bump fire stocks” and sometimes called “Slide Fire” after a brand name, are modifications to rifles such as the infamous “AR-15.” How does bump stock work? Well, it gives a semi-automatic weapon the ability to fire bullets in fast succession like a fully automatic one. In other words, bump stocks, or more accurately bump fire stocks, are attachments that turn a semi-automatic into a fully automatic firearm.
Semi-automatic weapons require the user to pull the trigger for every bullet they want to use. The weapon reloads automatically. Fully automatic weapons merely require the trigger to be pulled and held to finish off an entire round of bullets. The bump stocks work by using the recoil to “bump” the trigger “back into the trigger finger,” shooting repeated fire, hence the name. (Source: “What are the ‘bump stocks’ on the Las Vegas shooter’s guns?,” CNN, October 5, 2017.)
“Are bump stocks legal?” you might be wondering. Well yes, they are; even though automatic weapons are regulated by America’s gun control laws, bump stocks are fully legal. Meanwhile, the mystery remains why anyone, especially an apparently quiet and wealthy retired accountant, might want to use such force against unarmed civilians. Meanwhile, the NRA appears to not have cared that bump stock allows anyone to own an “illegal” or highly regulated fully automatic weapon. But from a strategic standpoint, it has worked well. In fact, there are early indications that the NRA might be willing to consider the regulation of bump stocks. It allows them to use bump stock as a shield, deflecting the argument away from the bigger gun control issue.
