Well, I finally got to read the official Las Vegas Mass Murder report. It is 187 pages long and a lot of it is simple documentation of evidence and statement of things we already knew. But a few interesting things came to light. Probably the most interesting being that it is documented that bump stocks were used in that shooting. Yes it has been documented that bump stocks were used in exactly 1 (one) crime in the entire United States, yet we have a national push to ban them, and they have been…in 11 states already. Think about that for a minute. Here is a firearm accessory that when looked at in all honesty is nothing more than a novelty, an item to shoot with. It definitely is not used for accurate fire. Nor does any serious shooter use one for self-defense as it cuts the accuracy of your shot placement way down.
If you know firearms and know how to shoot a rifle, you can fire very quickly (as fast as a bump stock if not faster), with far more accuracy without one.
The Las Vegas murderer used bump stocks on 12 of the 14 rifles that he fired before he killed himself. He fired over 1,050 rounds. What became interesting and obvious to anyone with knowledge about firearms is that most of the rifles used had 100-round magazines and when he ran them dry (ran out of ammo), rather than reloading, he just switched rifles. Even though he had multiple loaded magazines ready to go. Also interesting was the fact that many of the rifles used had no optics or sights on them at all. What does that mean? He was not aiming at anyone but just spraying rounds at the crowd below.
Some of those he did have optics on had red dot-style sights. Shooting one of those with a bump stock is not very accurate at all either.
What does this lead one to think about the shooter and shooting? He was not very experienced with shooting the firearms he used. Had he been…well, without giving copycats out there ideas, he could have done much more damage shooting differently. Let’s leave it at that. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say had he not used bump stocks he would have caused many more deaths or injuries as his accuracy would have been much greater.
Now, before you go off on a tangent and think I am defending bump stocks, I am not. Personally, I think they are just a novelty item and serve no real purpose other than maybe being fun to waste ammo with. But I will say that I also do not support any bans of them. Especially based on the fact they have been used in just one (1) documented case of murder.
Again we must revisit the fact that it’s not the tool that is at fault it is the person using the tool. So why the bump stock bans in some states and a rallying cry for a national ban? Because they need something to blame that they can target. It’s is too hard to target human behavior and its causes; the real problem in these cases. So let’s target something that really had nothing to do with the causation and may have actually contributed to fewer lives being lost. Let us blame the tool, not the user. Does that make any sense at all? I say no.