The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) is calling for a suppressor ban in reaction to the October 1 attack in Las Vegas.
Suppressors were not used in that attack, but LAPPL is calling for a ban on the devices anyway.
According to the Los Angeles Times, LAPPL is calling for a ban on armor-piercing ammunition and bump stocks, too.
The Las Vegas attacker did use bump stocks, but these actually made him less effective than he otherwise might have been. On October 4, Breitbart News reported:
Bump stock devices are for novelty, not accuracy–Bump-stock devices are not made for accuracy, but for the fun of mimicking automatic fire. Such devices tend to have a universal fit, which means an AR-15’s buffer tube can bobble back and fourth inside the bump-stock while the firearm is being shot. These are not made to be precision instruments but novelties that gun owners can enjoy while out shooting at the range.
Moreover, U.S. Army Sergeant First Class special forces soldier Tony Cowden indicated the Vegas attacker was not as deadly as he could have been, had he attacked without a bump stock.
The Daily Beast’s Justin Miller quoted Cowden:
And the ATF Association released a letter after the Vegas attack explaining that bump stocks do not convert semiautomatic rifles in fully automatic weapons. Rather, they are an accessory that allows the gun owner to mimic automatic fire in short bursts, but never in a way that fires more than one round of ammunition per pull of the trigger.
Yet Robert Harris, one of the LAPPL directors, said, “When it comes to accessories such as bump stocks, we think it is very reasonable to want to support legislation that would ban an accessory that would turn a semiautomatic rifle into a functioning fully automatic rifle.”
LAPPL hedged their support of gun control via a bump stock ban by saying, “As law enforcement officers, as police unions, we are unwavering in our support of the 2nd Amendment.”
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com