Download State Legislative Toolkit: Addressing Bump Stocks as a PDF.
Why Are Bump Stock Devices Legal?For over eight decades, federal law has strictly regulated the sale, manufacture, and possession of machine guns, which are fully automatic firearms that continue to fire bullets as long as the trigger is pressed and ammunition is available. This continuous fire feature makes machine guns particularly lethal if they are in the wrong hands.
Under existing federal law, a person may only transfer, acquire, or own a machine gun that was lawfully manufactured and owned prior to May 19, 1986. The transfer must also be approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) subject to a thorough background check, registration, and other requirements as outlined under the National Firearms Act. These restrictions have been highly effective and help explain why fully automatic machine guns are very rarely used in crimes or mass shooting attacks.
In recent years, however, the gun industry has marketed bump-stocks and similar devices, such as trigger cranks, that attach to a semi-automatic firearm and are de...