Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. announced his “strong” support Monday for banning so-called bump stock devices that allow semi-automatic guns to mimic fully automatic weapons.
In a letter from his group Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, Vance endorsed bump stock-blocking legislation introduced Oct. 4 by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
Feinstein’s bill, called the Automatic Gun Fire Prevention Act, aims to ban the sale, transfer, importation, manufacture or possession of bump stocks, trigger cranks and similar accessories that increase a semi-automatic rifle’s rate of fire.
The gunman who carried out the horrific massacre in Las Vegas used bump stocks to fire hundreds of rounds per minute at a country music festival and kill 58 people on Oct. 1.
“While federal law severely restricts the availability of automatic weapons, bump stocks are widely available,” the letter signed by Vance and 26 other top prosecutors around the country said. “It makes no sense to allow access to devices that so easily circumvent existing federal protections.”
Vance thanked Feinstein for her leadership and said the new legislation “could prevent future mass carnage.”
Feinstein said her bill is needed to close an automatic weapons “loophole.”
She said people can easily purchase bump stocks for less than $200 and “easily convert a semi-automatic weapon into a firearm that can shoot between 400 and 800 rounds per minute.”
Within days of the Las Vegas mass-shooting, the National Rifle Association released a statement appearing to support tighter control of bump stocks.
“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the group said.
But the NRA has opposed a legislative ban, and the issue quickly got bogged down when House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) passed the buck to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), saying new rules from the agency should do the trick.
In a letter to Congress, ATF officials said new legislation is actually needed.
