Trump asks Justice Department to explore bump stock ban, even though it was already ruled out months ago
President Trump announced Tuesday that he is directing the Justice Department to propose a ban for bump stock firearm modifications, which he said "turn legal weapons into machine guns." Bump stocks were a hot topic of debate after the Las Vegas shooting on Oct. 1, 2017, in which the modification — which essentially makes semiautomatic firearms operate as though they were fully automatic — was used to kill 58 people and injure hundreds of others.
Trump's order comes the week after the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed by a teenager with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, did not appear to use a bump stock during his rampage, the Miami Herald reports:
Sound recordings from inside the school Wednesday indicated that the weapon in question was on a semiautomatic setting, according to [weapons expert Frank] Smyth, who heard about 12 shots in a video posted to Twitter. "He was not using a bump stock," said Smyth. "With a semiautomatic you squeeze the trigger and it automatically reloads." [Miami Herald]
Additionally, the Justice Department determined in December that it likely does not have the ability to regulate bump stocks "without congressional action," The New York Times reports.
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