Largest maker of bump stocks will stop taking orders

The largest manufacturer of bump stocks, which allow semiautomatic guns to fire faster, will stop taking orders and shut down its website next month.

The announcement from Slide Fire Solutions comes about a month after President Donald Trump said his administration would ban bump stocks, which he said “turn legal weapons into illegal machines.”

The man behind the Oct. 1 Las Vegas Strip shooting used bump stocks to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured more than 700 others, according to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. No retailer in Nevada has sold bump stocks in recent months.

Las Vegas shooting survivor Christine Caria, who also works with the pro-gun control Brady Center for Gun Violence as well as the Route91Strong nonprofit, said she’s glad production has stopped.

She said she and her colleagues’ next goals include advocating for more public resources for the survivors and seeking approval of universal background checks.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Caria said.

Gun owner Justin Uhart, who also survived the shooting and lives in Las Vegas, said he’s not surprised by the news.

“I think he’s (the manufacturer is) just tired of all the headache and backlash he’s getting from the anti-gun crowd,” Uhart said.

Chris Sullivan, general manager of Guns & Guitars in Mesquite, said he didn’t know any bump stock owners.

“Anyone who knows the product knows that it isn’t reliable,” Sullivan said. “It causes more malfunctions than it’s worth. People will still buy them, though.”

Slide Fire Solutions, which is based in Moran, Texas, posted a message on its website saying the company will stop taking orders at midnight on May 20.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment sent through Slide Fire’s website and the company’s founder and CEO, Jeremiah Cottle, did not immediately respond to a LinkedIn message seeking comment.

The Brady Center for Gun Violence filed a lawsuit against Slide Fire after the Las Vegas shooting and alleged that the company “provided a product that turned a semi-automatic gun into the functional equivalent of a machine gun, thereby evading longstanding federal law.”

Mimi Carter, a spokeswoman for the Brady Center, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.

The Justice Department said last month that it had started the process to amend federal firearms regulations to clarify that federal law defines bump stocks as machine guns.

That would reverse a 2010 decision by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that found bump stocks did not amount to machine guns and could not be regulated unless Congress amended existing firearms law or passed a new one.

Some states have also sought their own restrictions. Last week, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, signed a package of bills that included a ban on bump stocks. A far-reaching school safety bill signed last month by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, also a Republican, included a bump stocks ban and was immediately met with a lawsuit by the National Rifle Association.

Contact Wade Tyler Millward at wmillward@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4602. Follow @wademillward on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.