Gateway to Gun Control
By: Kate Garton
The first mass shooting in the United States took place on September 6th, 1949; the shooter was a WWII veteran armed with a 9mm pistol. Since then, mass shootings have become an ever present threat, and the sponsors of H-B-03 believe the availability of automatic and semi-automatic weapons has aided criminals in these deadly rampages.
Noah Kellermann and Kirstin Zimmermann of Gateway Region YMCA aim to decrease gun violence by banning the sale, manufacturing, and possession of burst trigger activators.
This would prevent multi-burst trigger activators from turning semi-automatic weapons into automatic firearms and would decrease the amount of rounds that could be fired in a given period of time.
According to Senate Sponsor Kellermann, this piece of legislation is grounded in precedent and “these devices, such as a bump stock, have been banned in the past due to the Las Vegas shooting that killed fifty-eight people and injured over five hundred [people], but the government unfortunately left out the other devices that could be used.”
There is no funding needed to impose this bill, and anyone illegally selling these devices will face a twenty thousand dollar fine and a (maximum) 10 year prison sentence.
Regarding the concerns about the effects that this bill could have on the black market, Kellermann assures that “the best thing we can do is just to get these [devices] out of dangerous hands.”
RIII-16 passed in both the House and the Senate, and it is on its way to the Governor’s desk.
