美国国家公共电台 NPR Lawmakers Say The ATF Should Regulate Bump Stocks. It's Not That Simple

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

House Speaker Paul Ryan says he favors regulations against bump stocks - you know, those attachments 2 to semiautomatic rifles that makes them fire at the rate of a machine gun. Speaker Ryan says he favors restrictions 3 after bump stocks were apparently 4 used in the Las Vegas shooting. But he would rather the House not vote on them.

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PAUL RYAN: We think the regulatory fix is the smartest, quickest fix. And I'd frankly 5 like to know how it happened in the first place.

INSKEEP: A regulatory fix, meaning he hopes authorities reinterpret existing law taking this out of Congress hands. NPR's Ryan Lucas is in the studio with us to talk through the law. Good morning.

RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE 6: Good morning.

INSKEEP: So Ryan asks the question, how are these things legal when machine guns are supposed to be tightly restricted? How are they legal?

LUCAS: Well, first let's step back and talk about what bump stocks are. So they are an attachment 1 to a weapon that allows a semiautomatic to shoot at a faster rate - so something that would approach the rate of an automatic weapon or machine gun.

INSKEEP: This is what people heard on the video of the Las Vegas shooting, those bursts of fire.

LUCAS: Exactly. Exactly. And so the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is commonly referred to as the ATF...

INSKEEP: Yeah.

LUCAS: ...Is responsible for doing classification reviews, deciding how a weapon fits or an attachment fits into the spectrum 7 of firearms. Now, we know that ATF did what's called a classification review about eight years ago on bump stocks. And I spoke 8 with a number of former ATF officials who worked on this. And in trying to determine whether a firearm or a device is legal, the key question is how many bullets it shoots with one pull of the trigger. So if you pull the trigger once and you get one bullet, it's legal. It's a semiautomatic.

INSKEEP: Right.

INSKEEP: If you pull the trigger once and get a continuous stream of bullets until you let go of the trigger, it's a machine gun. And that is tightly regulated.

INSKEEP: OK. So they decided 9 that the bump stock did not make something a machine gun effectively?

LUCAS: Basically, what happens is when you pull - each pull of the trigger with a bump stock...

INSKEEP: Oh...

LUCAS: ...Let's one bullet.

INSKEEP: ...It's a vibration 10 that's making the trigger just be pulled many times very quickly...

LUCAS: Exactly.

INSKEEP: ...And so technically 11, it was OK. So they said it's legal. Can they actually revisit it and decide it's illegal after all?

LUCAS: They can. Now, ATF won't comment on whether they're doing that. They say it's internal deliberations, not something we talk about. But again, the former ATF officials that I've spoken with said that there's no reason that the bureau can't take another look at them. But remember, they've looked at the law before. They've looked to bump stocks before, and they said that they're good to go. So I spoke with a former official by the name of Rick Vasquez. He's a firearms consultant 12 now, but he used to work as an ATF expert in the branch that reviews guns and gun accessories. And here's what he told me.

RICK VASQUEZ: If I looked at it again and looked at the same documents that we had at that time, then my opinion wouldn't change.

INSKEEP: Well, this raises a question. We found this out on issue after issue. There are many things President Trump 13 would like to change about environmental law or about Obamacare. And it turns out that when there's a record of bureaucrats 14 deciding that the law means one thing, it's very hard. It's a very long process to change it to mean something else. Is it really practical to just change the regulation?

LUCAS: Well, there's a question of whether it's practical, then there's a question of whether it's possible. So if ATF has done this before and said, well, it's legal - for it to reverse itself, to reverse the classification of bump stocks and say that they're now illegal under current law - that would likely face, you know, challenges in court.

INSKEEP: Does that mean that it would be better if Congress did try to change the law?

LUCAS: Well, there are efforts to do that. Senator Feinstein from California is pushing a bill that would ban anything like a bump stock, anything that would essentially 15 accelerate the rate of fire a weapon. On the House side, Republican Carlos Curbelo has proposed a similar bill. And the experts that I've spoken to have certainly said that changing the law would be the most effective way of getting this off the street.

INSKEEP: Well, we'll see what happens. NPR's Ryan Lucas covers the Justice Department. Thanks very much.

LUCAS: Thank you.