Bump Stock Ban: Not Just Bad Constitutional Law, But Also Low-Caliber Policy

Nearly 15 months ago, Las Vegas experienced the worst mass shooting committed by a single individual on American soil. The gunman murdered 58 people, as well as injuring over 800 people. The mass shooting brought up the discussion of mental illness linked to mass shootings. My analysis on the matter found that there is not a solid link between mass shootings and mental illness. The Las Vegas shooting brought up another topic in the gun debate: bump fire stocks. The bump fire stock, simply known as a bump stock, is a device attached to a semi-automatic rifle that allows for more than one shot to be fired when the trigger is pulled. Although the bump stock allows for mimicry of an automatic fire, it still requires multiple pulls of the trigger to have the desired effect. Essentially, it allows the semi-automatic rifle to act more like an automatic in terms of the amount of rounds one can fire in a minute. The gunman of the Las Vegas shooting used the bump stock to wreak havoc on those people.

Why am I bringing this up now? Because over a year after the shooting, the Trump administration's Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) amended gun regulations to have guns with bump stocks categorized as "machine guns," and thus illegal. While President Trump issued a memorandum in February in response to the Parkland mass shooting to allow for such categorization, it took a few months to reach this moment. The point of amending these regulations is to show that the Trump administration is serious about curtailing gun violence.

There is a matter of constitutionality. The Cato Institute argues that the legislation should have been brought through Congress, not shoehorned into old pieces of legislation by executive agencies (also see National Review argument). There is also the argument that the Ninth and Tenth Amendment prohibit such legislation from being passed on the federal level, i.e., it should be done by state governments. Allowing for such a precedent would not only erode the separation of powers, but it could allow for semi-automatic rifles to be categorized as automatic rifles, as the American Enterprise Institute argues.

Let's forget the constitutionality argument for a moment. Even if it were constitutional, I would have a problem with it on a policy level. The National Rifle Association (NRA) was actually in favor of banning bump stocks, and I had to ask myself why. Some thought it as a step that the NRA was in support of "common sense" gun legislation. I will take the more cynical route and say that the NRA wanted to come off as less extremist as it does in the mainstream media by showing that it supports gun control. How so?

Prior to the Las Vegas shooting, the bump stock was considering something of a novelty. While it allows for a semi-automatic to de facto become more of an automatic rifle, the bump stock considerably sacrifices accuracy for a more rapid fire. The Las Vegas shooting was unique in that the shooter was 1,200 feet away and indiscriminately firing on a crowd with the sole purpose of maximizing damage. This would explain why I had such trouble finding empirical research on the effectiveness of a bump stock ban. Bump stocks had not been used in previous mass shootings, and have not been used since the Las Vegas shooting. Their lack of usage in homicides would explain why researchers would not bother analyzing the effects of such a ban.

This does not consider gun violence in the grander scheme of things. Rifles are not responsible for a majority of homicides. Quite the contrary! From 2013 to 2017, rifles only accounted for 1,582 homicides, which amount to 2.3 percent of all homicides (FBI Crime Statistics). The vast majority of homicides are committed by handguns, which would make a bump stock ban ineffective since bump stocks cannot be used for handguns. A bump stock ban would not affect nearly 98 percent of homicides. As for the other 2.3 percent, bump stocks are not used in homicides, as previously stated. Even the New York Times asked gun experts for their opinion on various gun control policy options, and their conclusion was that a bump stock ban would be ineffective (see chart below).

To recap, bump stocks have a high tradeoff between speed and accuracy. The vast majority of homicides are not committed by rifles. As unfortunate and tragic as the Las Vegas shooting was, the use of bump stocks for the purpose of homicide is an anomaly. It goes after a symptom rather than any of the root causes of gun violence. Therefore, there is no logical argument illustrating how a bump stock ban would be effective in reducing gun violence. Since most gun enthusiasts have little to no need for bump stocks, a bump stock ban is a low-hanging fruit for Democrats and Republicans alike. All a bump stock ban is going to do is create the illusion that the government is doing something about gun violence without actually doing anything.