Bump stocks back on sale at leading manufacturer after temporary halt

• Slide Fire website resumes selling controversial gun accessory
• Las Vegas shooter used bump-stock devices to kill 58 people

Jamiles Lartey in New York
Tuesday 7 November 2017 17.15 GMT

Bump-stock devices like the ones used by the gunman in last month’s Las Vegas massacre are back on sale from the US’s leading manufacturer after a five-week hiatus in the shooting’s aftermath.

The devices, accessories that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at fully automatic rates, went back on sale at 11am on Tuesday on the Slide Fire website.

The company had paused sales in early October when their product came under scrutiny after a gunman, using several rifles fitted with bump stocks, fired thousands of rounds into a crowd of concertgoers. Other online retailers quickly sold out of the devices that week, as concern that they might be banned drove a spike in sales.

Availability could be short-lived for some consumers. On Friday, Massachusetts became the first state to ban the sale and ownership of bump stocks since the October attack. They had already been banned in California.

Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts said in a statement that his office “support(s) the second amendment to the constitution and Massachusetts’ strict gun laws, including the ban on assault weapons and bump stocks, and (is) pleased that the commonwealth continues to lead in passing commonsense reforms.”

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