The Las Vegas massacre reminds us again that semi-automatic and automatic firearms are capable of killing scores of people before outside intervention can stop the slaughter. Because we cannot identify mass killers in advance, we must deprive them of their weapons of choice: automatic and semi-automatic firearms.
(The difference is the former weapon will keep firing rounds until the magazine is empty, so long as the trigger is depressed; the latter will fire one round each time the trigger is pulled. Both types of guns automatically inject a new round into the chamber each time they are fired: i.e., they are auto-loading.)
Auto-loading firearms are particularly dangerous for two reasons: (1) They can be fired extremely rapidly (600 to 700 rounds per minute for some automatic weapons; 150-200 for semis); and (2) their ammunition is almost always supplied by use of detachable magazines that can hold a large number of rounds — as many as 100 for an AR-15, the most popular military-style assault rifle. Furthermore, a spent magazine quickly can be exchanged for a full one by pressing a button or lever on the weapon to release the empty magazine and inserting a new loaded clip, an operation requiring only a few seconds to complete.
With the exception of roughly 390,000 licensed automatic weapons (sometimes referred to as “machine guns”), the estimated 5 million assault rifles owned by United States citizens in theory should all be semi-automatic. In reality, however, tens — perhaps hundreds — of thousands of these weapons have been illegally converted to an automatic firing capability. At least two of Steven Paddock’s rifles found in his Las Vegas hotel room were legally purchased semi-automatic rifles which had been modified to make them fully automatic.
The Las Vegas massacre has given rise to a call for the banning of so-called “bump fire stocks,” a device which is used to make semi-automatic rifles, like the AR-15 and AK-47, perform like automatic weapons. The Trump administration and some Republican legislators have indicated a willingness to consider such a ban; predictably the National Rifle Association has rejected any legislative ban.
The banning of bump stocks is a worthy goal; but such a ban would not address a broader problem and likely would not have an appreciable effect on firearm-caused massacres. Would-be mass murders simply could use legally-obtained kits, other than bump stocks, to convert semi- to automatic.
But to focus only on automatic weapons is to miss the essential point that the most recent firearm massacres — Aurora, Sandy Hook, Orlando and San Bernardino come to mind — involved semi-automatic assault rifles, not machine guns. Similarly, the killers in the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin and the massacres at Fort Hood and Virginia Tech used semi-automatic pistols. A ban on bump stocks would have had no effect on those tragedies.
If we are serious about effectively dealing with the firearms used in massacres, we must eliminate private ownership of weapons which are fed by high-capacity magazines. This could be done by banning the possession, transfer or sale of semi-automatic and automatic rifles and pistols or by prohibiting the the private ownership of any firearm which uses a detachable magazine, at the same time limiting built-in magazines to a capacity of, say, six rounds. Such measures, if fully instituted, would allow most potential victims in a mass shooting to escape from the shooter or to overpower him while he is reloading.
The above-proposed approach would take years to accomplish at a cost of several billion dollars for the buy-back of banned guns. More important, it would require the cooperation of those who own the banned guns. We can do this; but are we willing to pay the price?
Steven H. Gunn, Holladay, is an attorney and is a member of the board of directors of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah.