Here is another bit of information on the bump-stock devices the shooter used.
While a lot of rhetoric is flying around about who's to blame, these are the unspun facts...
In a June 2010 letter, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told the manufacturer of the bump-stock device that it considered the device to be outside its regulatory jurisdiction, thereby posing no obstacle to its marketing. The bureau noted that the device was intended to help people whose hands have limited mobility and that it had no automatically functioning parts. Constant forward pressure with the non-shooting hand and constant rearward pressure with the shooting hand were required for it to work, the letter said.
But there’s more. Republicans by and large did not support Democratic legislation that would have restricted bump stocks. Such a provision was contained in a 2013 bill pushed by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.
There’s still more, though. The provision was in a bill that had little hope of GOP support because it sought to restore a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons, a non-starter for many in the GOP.
Legislation often contains pieces that might win bipartisan support if they were not entangled in sweeping measures unpalatable to the other side.
So, in essence, neither party in Congress had the foresight to take a clean run against bump stocks and similar devices before they were put to such lethal use.
Now you know.
