Holly Fingerle and Mary Klonowski, LWVIL Issue Specialists, Gun Violence Prevention
ACTION NEEDED:
Tell the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to Ban Bump Stocks. Please
submit a public comment to the ATF urging them to finalize its proposed rule to regulate bump stocks before the deadline of 6/27/18:
WHY IT MATTERS:
The League of Women Voters of the United States believes that the proliferation of handguns and semi-automatic assault weapons in the United States is a major health and safety threat to its citizens. Bump stocks assist in making guns fire more rapidly, which simulates the rate of fire of a fully automatic firearm.
Machine guns have been tightly regulated under federal law since the 1930's, but bump stocks and other rapid-fire devices are designed to skirt the law and mimic automatic gunfire and can greatly increase the lethality of shootings.
On October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500. Contributing to the number of victims were bump stocks, an accessory that enables semiautomatic weapons to mimic automatic fire. A bump stock enabled rifle firing more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition in 11 minutes at that event.
We must act before these devices are used in another mass shooting like Las Vegas.
