Sensing the national anguish has died down after 58 people were killed and 546 were injured in the early October mass shooting in Las Vegas, Republicans are again returning to their NRA-driven agenda to loosen gun laws. They’ve put H.R. 38, the “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” back on the agenda. This extremely dangerous legislation would essentially mean the end of conceal-carry restrictions nationwide. A person in Kansas who carries a concealed gun, a state where there are no background checks, no training courses, and no permits necessary to carry a gun anywhere in the state, would be able to legally carry that weapon across state lines regardless of the laws of that state.
As Rep. Ted Lieu of California pointed out this morning, people convicted of stalking and violent crime can take their dangerous act nationwide.
An astonishingly high 81percent of Americans believe permits should be issued to carry a concealed weapon. The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a statement in June that strongly opposed this legislation, calling on Congress to reject it outright. New York County District Attorney Cy Vance is vehemently opposed to the bill, citing the increased risk of terrorism for New York City.
"Law enforcement around the country, the major city chiefs, the major prosecutors offices from the big cities all oppose this act because it would increase danger to our communities and our cops," he said.
Vance questioned the logic behind the bill.
"Does anyone really think the gun laws in West Virginia should be the same laws that apply in Washington Heights, Manhattan? Can you imagine how incensed Idaho would be if they had to abide by New York gun laws?" Vance asked.
"It's a dangerous and ill-conceived bill."
Meanwhile, the Republican-led Congress hasn’t lifted one finger to ban bump stocks, the extremely dangerous gun modification that allows a semi-automatic AR-15-type gun to operate as a fully automatic weapon. This the reason gunman Stephen Paddock was able to shoot more than 600 people in mere minutes. In fact, the maker of the bump stock accessory has not only resumed sales, they touted them in Cyber Monday ads:
At the time, Slide Fire said the reason to halt sales was that they were sold out, even though both Walmart and Cabela’s stopped selling them on their websites. But Slide Fire is now back to marketing bump stocks heavily, just in time for “Cyber Monday,” typically the biggest e-commerce shopping day of the year.
“We will have a wide variety of products available for sale on Cyber Monday!” Slide Fire said in a press release appearing on trade sites like Ammoland and Gunsamerica. “At 12:00 a.m. CST on November 27th, the items will begin to be listed for sale.”
The company also warned potential customers that they expect “high traffic volumes.”
Just swell. And they weren’t the only ones with holiday specials:
Slide Fire Solutions’ decision to reboot sales on Cyber Monday comes just days after the gun industry saw its most successful Black Friday ever. There were a total of 203,000 FBI background checks (a proxy for gun sales) run in just one day, outpacing the previous year’s record of 185,000 checks.