CNN is saying shooter had full auto weapons!!!!

[LongTomH]

How the hell did he obtain full automatic weapons?

[politicaljunkie41910]

1. They said that they are all legal for sale in the state of Nevada. No license or permits required.

[LittleBlue]

4. Do you have a link for that?

I've been trying to find this info all day. Thx

[tammywammy]

10. Automatic weapons are covered by the 1934 National Firearms Act.

It requires a background check and registration.

[Kaleva]

11. There are strict federal rules to follow though.

[JoeStuckInOH]

13. That is incorrect. They require FEDERAL registration, permits, and fees - regardless fo NV law.

Regardless of NV Law, machineguns (and short rifles, short shotguns, & silencers) require FEDERAL LEVEL registration. Most states do not have restrictions on these items, but there are still requirements federally that have to happen before you can buy/possess them.

The Federal registration involves: Photos, fingerprint cards, Paperwork, Background Check, and a $200 per-firearm excise tax fee... typically takes about 4+ months for all the stuff to be processed and approved. This is knowledge from firsthand experience.

My guess is that these are more likely illegally converted to full auto regular guns or stolen full autos from someone else's possession. But I guess it's also possible this guy had tons of money and registered guns, too.

[DVRacer]

14. Not true

A class III license and an approval stamp from the ATF is required in all 50 states. Even here in Oklahoma you would also need a sign off from local law enforcement via your county sheriff. In addition only firearms produced before 1986 would be available for sale. Legally it is quite difficult and very expensive to own an automatic weapon. Just giving facts.

[LonePirate]

28. That's assuming he acquired them legally. He possibly obtained everything illegally.

If you want a gun in this country, there's always someone willing to sell you one if you have enough cash.

[Baitball Blogger]

29. Nevada has some 'splaining to do.

[Lee-Lee]

36. That's not true at all.

[GoCubsGo]

37. He also could have gone to Kingman, Arizona.

My brother is retired law enforcement. He said Kingman is the country's biggest spot for illegal gun sales. It wouldn't surprise me if that is indeed where he got his weaponry.

[LittleBlue]

2. Wondering the same myself

If someone sold him a fully automatic weapon, he should spend the rest of his life in prison.

[JoeStuckInOH]

3. My guess is:

A) He legally bought registered machine Guns (~$20k apiece in the US)
B) He illegally Converted a few normal semiautomatics.

Either is possible with enough money and knowhow (read: the internet).
Option A takes more money.
Option B takes more skills with machining tools.

[Kaleva]

9. Bump fire adaptors gives one near full auto capabilites and they are legal to purchase

[JoeStuckInOH]

15. True. i didn;t think that. I assumed the media saying "full auto" means "full auto".

Really... a stupid assumption to make on my part about the news media correctly relaying firearm terminology accurately.

[Kaleva]

23. He may have had weapons capable of automatic fire.

Or he may have had weapons with a bump fire stock which allows the shooter to fire almost as fast as a fully automatic weapon.

[JoeStuckInOH]

25. They have those two-shot triggers now. Each time you squeeze and let go the gun shoots twice.

I think it's called binary-firing... the trigger shoots when you pull and then again when you release the trigger. So legally it's not a full auto, but you literally get twice firing rate than a regular semi-automatic. It wouldn't be hard to hit true full automatic speeds (10-15 bullets per second) with only 5-8 trigger pulls per second.

[Amishman]

45. By brother in law has one of those in one of his 'toys'

Jams constantly and doesn't sound like the videos when it actually works.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

5. Sound alone made me go wtf?

I knew it by the sound

But yea I also understand in certain cases they can be owned.

[ProfessorGAC]

30. Same Here!

I'm certainly not a gun expert, but reports were so close together for a long ass time, that I can't fathom anybody pulling a trigger that fast for that many seconds!
Willing to admit I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

[ksoze]

6. Semi-autos easily modified.

Auto illegal in all 50 states, but easily modified with the right directions and parts.

[hack89]

17. No they are not.

by law, automatics are regulated at the component level. Any receiver that can easily be modified to full auto would be regulated as an automatic weapon. That is why gun manufacturers had to re-engineer their weapons to make it very hard to convert.

There is a reason why automatic weapons are never used in crimes.

[Hoyt]

53. Semi-auto kills fast enough. But semi-autos can be modified easily enough. Will be interesting

to see how this "good guy with a gun" got his auto and the rest of his weapons cache.

[Kaleva]

7. They are legal to own

You can buy them from a gun dealer who is licensed to sell them.

[Hoyt]

8. Not that hard to obtain, make or convert. Besides, he could have killed a lot of folks with a semi.

There are hundreds more videos just like these to help gunners become domestic terrorists.

[Kaleva]

12. My guess is the shooter was using a bump fire stock.

[ProfessorGAC]

32. You Sure?

As I said above, I'm nothing close to a gun expert! But I recorded a small snip of the video sound and slowed it down digitally.
I'm counting slightly over 5 shots per second
A bump stock will do 300+ plus per minute? If you sat yes, I'll trust your expertise but that seems awfully high.

[Kaleva]

34. With practice, rates of fire from 400 to 800 rounds per minute are achievable.

That info is from a bump stock manufacturer's website.

[Not Ruth]

42. The main difference is that with a bump fire stock, you are not aiming, you are firing

You are essentially turning your gun into a pyrotechnic device. So law enforcement cares a little, but not a lot as the lack of accuracy makes the weapon useless. Which means that an open target area with 300k people is handy. The planning that went into this operation was close to 9/11 in my opinion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_fire

"Bump firing is the act of using the recoil of a semi-automatic firearm to fire shots in rapid succession, which simulates the feeling of a fully automatic firearm. This process involves bracing the rifle with the non-trigger hand, releasing the grip on the firing hand (leaving the trigger finger in its normal position in front of the trigger), pushing the rifle forward in order to apply pressure on the trigger from the finger, and keeping the trigger finger stationary. During a shot, the firearm will recoil ("bump" back) and the trigger will reset as it normally does; then the non-trigger hand pulls the firearm away from the body and back to the original position, pressing the trigger against the stationary finger again, thereby firing another round when the trigger is pushed back.

This technique is usually used for entertainment, as the drawback of decreased accuracy eliminates any conceivable "tactical" advantage that might be gained. However, when used in close proximity, the desired effect of many bullets hitting a target can easily be attained. Normally, a rifle is held securely and firmly against the shoulder but the loose shoulder hold that creates the rattle to rapidly depress the trigger affects accuracy that is not encountered with firearms that are designed for select-fire."

[Not Ruth]

44. If you used to watch old Westerns, it is similar to holding down the trigger on the old revolver and

fanning the trigger. So inaccurate, that no one would dare do it in a real shootout, but looks cool when you are dressed like a cowpoke.

[Kaleva]

48. With bump fire, you are not aiming but with the bump fire stock, you can aim.

And with practice, become pretty accurate too.

[ProfessorGAC]

54. Wow!

Never would guessed that

[workinclasszero]

19. Are all these on YouTube?

I mean damn are there videos on bomb making too?

Are there any restrictions at all on YouTube?

[Wounded Bear]

22. You haven't heard of the Anarchists Handbook?

The info is out there if you want to get it.

[workinclasszero]

24. Yes I have

The guy that wrote it regrets doing it now.

I know the info is out there but do we have to make it easy as hell to access?

[Hoyt]

31. Just search under "semi-auto to auto." You can refine it, but lots of videos pop up with simple

search. That probably means a lot of those "responsible" gun owners spend their non-gun-stroking time looking this crap up.

[workinclasszero]

33. We as a society set the table for these terrorist bastards

Then we are outraged when they take advantage of the tools we have placed before them.

Doesn't make sense to me.

[JoeStuckInOH]

20. I wonder if the fat guy with the pistol is the same 400LB dude that was hacking hillary's servers...

LOL. Sorry, that fat guy and the pistol were cracking me up. The gun was bouncing off his stomach for rapid fire.

[Codeine]

43. Good lord. That bump fire shit is basically

full-auto, isn't it?

[Not Ruth]

16. Let's see if CNN is correct

[BarbaRosa]

18. I would guess that if you have the money and the desire

you can get any gun you want these days, legal be damned.

[fescuerescue]

27. Well ultimately they are fairly simple machines.

No electronics or specialized materials. They are essentially 1930's technology.

Plans, Time, Machine shop and money. Anyone with mechanical ability can do it.

[Amishman]

47. This is probably the case here. Asshole clearly put a lot of thought into this

And guns are fairly simple mechanical devices. Someone with time, attention to detail, an internet connection can do it.

[MineralMan]

21. Individuals can own some fully automatic weapons

if they have a Federal Permit to do so. Such people virtually never commit crimes with those firearms.

There is a blackish market, however, within the firearms community from which full-auto firearms are available, at a very high price and very illegally. Some are military weapons that have been stolen from military bases. Others are imported full-auto weapons that have also been brought to market illegally. More of these firearms than most people imagine are individual hands, but you won't see them or hear about them, due to their illegal status.

For a very, very few semi-auto firearms conversion to full-auto fire can be done by a skilled gunsmith. In reality, few such conversions are made and they are as illegal as manufactured full-auto without the federal permit.

Then are are attachments for certain AR-15 style rifles that can simulate full-auto fire. They're not much good for accurate shooting and are somewhat hit and miss in use, but they are still legal since a trigger pull is still needed for each round fired. What these attachments do is utilize the movement of the weapon after firing to move the weapon against your trigger finger and off at a rapid rate.

The last option was probably what the Vegas shooter was using. It's possible that he could have purchased a black-market full-auto weapon, of course, but that's less likely than his use of a full-auto simulation accessory device.

[octoberlib]

35. I imagine they can buy them on the dark web at Silk Road type places.

[MineralMan]

41. I suppose, but most people have no access to those places.

I think most of the illegal transfers of full-auto firearms happen through conversations among firearms fanatics. Some guy who has acquired a surfeit of military-looking semi-autos and accessories ventures to someone else like him that his fondest dream is to own a selective fire M-16. That someone else tells him about "this guy" who has one and is looking to unload it for, say $20,000.

The first guy says, "I could do that. All I'd have to do is sell some of my AR-15 clones and I could raise that cash. Tell "that guy" that I'm interested"

From there, it gets established that everyone is capable of silence about the exchange and the money changes hands and that stolen military M-16 goes into the back of the SUV and has a new owner.

This kind of thing is gun-nut stuff, and like all rabid collectors, that "precious" they've been looking for is the ultimate goal and the collector will come up with the cash.

I remember back when I was in the international mineral specimen business. I was at a major mineral show, where bundles of $100 bills were exchanged like pocket change in hotel rooms. The rumor was that there was a specimen of moon rock floating around looking for a buyer. It turned out to be true. I don't know who had it or who bought it, but a whole bunch of those bundles of Benjamins was involved. If you have to have it and you can pay for it, you can have it, pretty much, in the end.

The person-to-person firearms market is complex, but there's an almost casual, dark area in it where firearms laws are not particularly of concern. In that area, there are lots of full-auto military firearms circulating. I couldn't buy one. You couldn't buy one, but dedicated gun nuts can, if they really want to. It's all word-of-mouth business.

[fescuerescue]

26. I will be interested to find out

He either went through the many FBI licensing hoops and spent a hell of a lot of money (about $20k per machine gun)

or he had access to plans and a machine shop and modified them.

Or I suppose he could have stolen or bought them from someone else who did the above.

[Lee-Lee]

38. Or got them from out of the country

Mexico would be the most likely choice as it is awash in full auto weapons in the wrong hands, most that were from the Mexican government and police or soldiers defected to the cartels or were just corrupt and sold them to them. And there are even more that have come up from Central and South America.

[Kablooie]

39. There are trigger cranks legally for sale on the web.

From the uneveness of the sound of the barrage it could have been one of these hand cranks that can shoot several rounds a second.


http://twozprecision.com/product/gatcrank-15/

[sarisataka]

40. Has CNN ever said something

That later turned out to be wrong?

Not saying they are wrong, or right, just how often early "facts" turn out differently. (remember the Dallas shooting was, at first, multiple shooters with automatic weapons working with coordinated tactics. At the end, one man with a semiautomatic rifle)

[jmg257]

46. Guy apparently was wealthy enough - maybe he had the federal stuff resolved to own a few of 'em?

[LongTomH]

49. A bump fire mechanism is a likely explanation........

From Slate mag: Why the Vegas Shooter Didn’t Need an Automatic Weapon to Shoot Like That. Sub-heading: "There are many hacks for converting a rifle to fire nearly automatically, and most aren’t regulated."

Since 1986, U.S. gun-makers have been prohibited from manufacturing civilian guns capable of firing automatically. The relatively few machine guns in circulation are held mostly by collectors, who pay up to tens of thousands of dollars for them. ATF records show that 11,752 machine guns are listed as held by gun owners in Nevada.

There are other ways to get a rifle to approach automatic fire, however, and it’s those means that investigators are likely probing now.

As the Trace has reported, gun enthusiasts often use “bump fire”—a method using the recoil of a semi-automatic firearm to fire several shots in succession—to legally and cheaply hack their way to a faster rate of fire.

Reporter Alex Yablon focused his story on the Bump Fire stock, a $99 accessory that achieves the desired effect:

The Bump Fire stock doesn’t convert semiautomatic rifles to true automatic fire. Rather, it provides an effective means of engaging a gun’s trigger extremely quickly. Instead of pulling back the trigger to fire, the user places his or her finger slightly in front of the trigger and pushes the whole gun forward with steady pressure. The trigger hits the finger and the round goes off. Recoil pushes the gun back, but the shooter’s forward pressure immediately returns the trigger back to the finger, and so the gun fires off another round faster than the blink of an eye.

Bump Fire stocks are just one type of accessory that can increase the rate of fire. There are many. Here’s a video of the “GatCrank,” a small crank that can be attached to a firearm to mimic the function of a Gatling gun:

Edited to add:

n 2013, in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed a law that would have banned bump-fire devices or any accessories designed to increase a gun’s rate of fire. The legislation never went to vote.

[icymist]

50. This is most likely how...

How to Make Your Gun Shoot Like It’s Fully Automatic—in One Easy Step
A legal add-on can make assault rifles fire “as a machine gun would.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/how-make-your-gun-shoot-fully-automatic-one-easy-step/

[catbyte]

51. I can't believe you can buy shit on the Internet to modify semi-auto to full. the NRA

will probably torpedo any legislation to outlaw even that. MSNBC said that you can get crappy modification kits for $150; better ones for a bit more & he said they were available in the US.

[Adrahil]

56. Mainly it's because...

It's difficult to write a law that effectively makes it impossible to sell parts that can be used for that. At some point, you'd just have to outlaw "tools." And with modern printing and CNC tech, even if you made it illegal to sell such things, it would be fairly easy to make one yourself, or have them made for you.

That's why the law relies on making the end product illegal, but it is hard hard to precisely define a machine gun in a broad sense. This killer, for example, did not technically possess a machine gun... but he got the same effect anyway.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

52. I'm sure the FBI and BATF are wondering the same thing.

And, they have resources to investigate it.

Whether we will know the results, who knows?

[Adrahil]

55. Looks like it was indeed a bump stock...

Wonder if Congress can figure out a law to get rid of them, thoug it's perfectly possible to bump fire without one.