By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Members of the Illinois House of Representatives could soon send a ban on a gun accessory used in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 58 people to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk.
Critics say it’s a redundancy of a federal law and could put people traveling through the state in prison.
The state Senate sent a standalone ban on bump stocks to the House Thursday. The gun accessories use the recoil of a rifle shot to pull the trigger again, mimicking the rapid-fire shooting capability of a fully-automatic rifle. The proposed law would make possession of a bump stock a Class 2 felony, punishable by 3 to 7 years in prison.
Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, said his bill carries a fitting punishment considering the damage the devices can cause.
“The penalty is the same for owning a fully-automatic weapon or something that makes a gun fire rapidly,” he said.
An earlier version allowed local governments to ban assault-style rifles, but it failed. Republicans cried foul, saying banning bump stocks were something both sides had agreed to and Democrats added the local assault-style rifles ban language as a “poison pill.”
Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, said the punishment in Raoul’s proposal was far too severe, warning that it could ensnare people passing through the state from a place where bump stocks are legal.
“I would urge that we be very careful with this legislation, especially when it comes to law-abiding citizens that already possess these and are traveling across state lines,” he said.
Anderson said that the punishment for owning a bump stock would be more severe than “shooting a pistol into a crowd.” Raoul denied that.
The man who killed 58 and wounded hundreds more in Las Vegas in the October 2017 shooting used bump stocks on his guns.
