“NRA support for restricting ‘bump stocks’ reflects impact of Las Vegas massacre,” reads the headline of an October 5 Washington Post article. The headline is stunning. Is the NRA finally recognizing the need for some kind of legislation after yet another mass murder? Could it be true?

The answer is no. Please do not be fooled.

In the wake of the mass murder of 58 people, the NRA and its CEO, Wayne LaPierre, called for a review of the legality of a gun accessory they never cared about to begin with, in what seemed like an attempt to distract from the real issue: Their total opposition to the transformative gun safety laws America actually needs.

A bump stock, or bump fire stock, is a device that enables a semi-automatic rifle (SAR) to fire like an automatic weapon. Federal law enforcement officials have said Stephen Paddock, the gunman in Las Vegas, may have used the device in his massacre targeting attendees of the Route 91 Harvest Festival. There is no legitimate reason for someone to possess them, Michael Bouchard, the former assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), told the Washington Post. They serve “no purpose other than someone to have it and say, ‘This is cool.’”

So, fine, let’s get rid of them. But the NRA’s call for a review of bump stocks – which they don’t allow on their own range – is nothing more than craven politicking, an attempt to feed both sides of the political aisle. By calling for possible regulation on anything gun-related, they seem to be trying to distract the left from the NRA’s expansive agenda to pass federal pro-gun laws and similar laws throughout the country. And by going after "bump stocks" specifically, they are giving NRA lapdogs like Dana Loesch and Sean Hannity the opportunity to lay blame for their legality squarely at the feet of our first black president.

Yes, during President Obama’s tenure, in 2010, the manufacturer of the bump fire was granted approval from the ATF. A manufacturer petitioned approval with a letterclaiming, in part, that the device was intended to "assist persons whose hands have limited mobility to 'bump-fire' an AR-15 type rifle." In other words, they claimed this was a way to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. The suggestion that this is all Obama’s fault is NRA propaganda: The administration approved it because it was considered a firearm part and not a firearm so the ATF didn’t have the power to regulate it under the federal Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act.

Meanwhile, the NRA has actually been using the same claim as the bump stock manufacturers – civil rights for people with disabilities – to try to further its own agenda. Shortly after taking office, Trump and the GOP (joined by several Democrats) overturned an Obama regulation that required the Social Security Administration to provide the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the U.S. system that determines if someone is eligible to buy a gun, with a list of individuals who have been “adjudicated as a mental defective” and are unable to manage their own finances as a result of their condition. Proponents of this change claimed the restriction not only violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms but also stigmatized citizens with disabilities. The NRA applauded the bipartisan move to overturn the Obama administration’s “last-minute, back-door gun grab that stripped law-abiding Americans of their rights without due process.” The NRA conveniently forgets that in 2012, LaPierre argued for the creation of a national database of the mentally ill as one way to curb gun violence saying, "How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?”

It’s clear that the NRA’s real objective is neither protecting civil rights of the disabled nor enhancing public safety. Instead, the NRA is focused on eroding already weak gun control laws — making guns easier to purchase and carry, which, of course, primarily benefits gun manufacturers. In 2004, for instance, the NRA helped stop a renewal of the federal ban on assault weapons, and in the years that followed, rifle production surged. The NRA, in turn, receives millions of dollars in donations from the gun industry each year. "Today's NRA is a virtual subsidiary of the gun industry," Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, told Business Insider.

Year after year, mass shooting after mass shooting, the NRA has remained unmoved. After 20 children and six adult staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, LaPierre called for an end to gun-free school zones and armed guards and teachers. After 49 people were killed at the Pulse Nightclub, the NRA said guns are not the problem – “radical Islamic terrorists” are. Neither shooter used bump stocks. They used completely legal SARs

A person doesn’t need a bump stock to gunsmith an AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon. On a reporting trip to Kentucky several years ago (where I modified an AR-15 with a bump stock in only three minutes), I attended a gun show. Vendors had not only firearms but plenty of literature on how to modify your gun to shoot full auto, with just a few tools and some know-how. I was also approached no less than five times (while browsing the how-to-make-a-machine-gun book section) by people with guns slung across their backs offering them for sale. One man offered me the SAR hanging on his shoulder – one he built himself. The ability to buy a gun off a person’s back at a gun show with no background check – which can be totally legal – is one of the gun show loopholes the NRA claims don’t exist.

Meanwhile, across the country states are passing laws – local candidates are backed by the NRA as well – allowing concealed carry permits. The NRA is pushing for a national concealed carry reciprocity law that would allow a person with a permit to travel with their concealed weapon freely around the United States. And there is current legislation proposed called the Hearing Protection Act that would make silencers, which reduce the sound of a gun, legal.

Law enforcement found 23 guns as well as high-capacity ammunition magazines in Paddock’s Vegas hotel room. These magazines, which are easily purchased at gun stores or online, allow a person to shoot more rounds without stopping to reload as often, but only seven states ban them for use with any firearm. Last Monday, a man in Tennessee was pulled over for a routine traffic stop. According to the Associated Press, the cops found a cache of weapons in his car including two “submachine guns” and over 900 rounds of ammo. Fully automatic weapons, although strictly regulated, are legal to purchase in the U.S. (An ATF spokesman said the agency doesn’t “see a connection” between this arrest and recent mass shootings. A bond hearing is set for Wednesday.) Last Thursday, four people were shot and killed in Arizona – another mass shooting, as defined by the FBI as having at least four victims. “We don't have a motive for the shooting at this time, but this is some kind of domestic issue," a police spokesman said. If that’s the case, it would add to the death count in the ongoing crisis of domestic violence and guns.

And yet the NRA, in a statement released days after the tragedy, chose to focus only on bump stocks, once again condemning efforts to implement needed gun control measures. It also used the opportunity to call on Congress to pass a concealed carry bill, even though later in the week LaPierre appeared on Hannity and slammed “the other side” for trying to politicize the issue. He also emphasized that he wasn’t calling for bump stocks to be banned or confiscated – he was simply suggesting the ATF look into the issue.

The NRA hasn’t had some attack of conscience. Give the NRA zero credit for their sacrifice of the "bump stock." Call it what it is – a smoke screen attempting to veil their ongoing push for deadly gun laws. They use their misinterpretation and exaggeration of the Second Amendment as a cudgel to those who would cross them. They don’t care about your safety – they’re bullies and hypocrites, and it is our job to continue to call them on it because this is just the next chapter in their disgusting history.

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