In February, President Trump said that he would ban so-called “bump stocks,” and his administration is now reportedly preparing to make an announcement on the proposed ban official.
Trump’s promise to ban “bump stocks” has been held up by red tape formalities; however, officials close to the matter said the formal announcement of the proposed ban is imminent and could take place within coming days, CNN reported this week.
“I’m going to write that out. You won’t have to worry about bump stocks,” Trump had vowed, after a lone shooter killed 58 people at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas last October.
In that mass shooting, the shooter used guns equipped with a bump stock device, allowing him to fire off an alleged 90 rounds in 10 seconds, according to the New York Times.
In October, Trump said the ban would move forward in a matter of weeks, USA Today reported at the time.
“We’re knocking out bump stocks. I’ve told the NRA bump stocks are gone (in) two or three weeks,” Trump said in October.
Under the Obama Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) determined that “bump stocks” were not subject to federal regulation.
Earlier this year, Trump directed the Justice Department to overturn the Obama Administration’s definition of “bump stocks” and conclude that they should be illegal under federal law with machine guns since they allow a “shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger.”
On Wednesday, a senior Justice Department official said, “Bump stocks turn semi-automatic guns into illegal machine guns. This final rule sends a clear message: Illegal guns have no place in a law-and-order society, and we will continue to vigorously enforce the law to keep these illegal weapons off the street.”
The revised law would require all bump stock owners to either surrender their devices or destroy them within 90 days.
Federal bump stock ban coming soon: report.https://t.co/mPrYpRxfle
— WSIL News (@WSILNews) November 29, 2018
Republican policymakers wanted ATF and the Justice Department to rewrite the regulation, but Democrats think this will bring forth lawsuits and delay the ban due to the earlier definition of “bump stocks.”
Texas-based company Slide Fire Solutions designed the bump-fire stock device. But in June, they said on their website that they would not accept any more orders for their products and were planning to close their website.
After the website was shut down, Slide Fire Solutions began directing customers to a different arms dealer in Texas that is selling the remaining inventory belonging to Slide Fire.
The company liquidating the inventory, RW Arms, is still active and even offered Cyber Monday deals this week on Slide Fire products.
This headline has been updated to reflect that it would be the finalized “bump stock” ban, and the story has been updated to more clearly convey that the final version of the ban would be announced.
