The company that claims to have invented the bump stock has temporarily stopped selling them.Slide Fire Solutions, headquartered in Moran, Texas, was founded by Jeremiah Cottle, an Air Force veteran who served in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, as well as in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Cottle claims to have invented the “bump stock” device.On Thursday, a message appeared on Slide Fire Solutions’ website saying it has decided to “temporarily suspend taking new orders in order to provide the best service with those already placed.”
Bump stocks are suddenly in the national spotlight after authorities revealed that Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was equipped with 12 of the devices when he sprayed a crowd of country music festivalgoers with bullets on Sunday night.Bump stocks — marketed under the names “Slide Fire,” “Bumpski,” and others — allow gun owners to essentially transform their semi-automatic rifles into fully automatic ones, and unleash a rapid hail of gunfire faster than a human being is capable of doing manually.It isn’t clear whether Slide Fire Solutions is sold out of bump stocks (as implied by their statement) or if they’re no longer listing the devices due to heightened scrutiny following the Las Vegas massacre; on Thursday, lawmakers signaled plans to reintroduce an earlier bill that would ban the devices.
Slide Fire Solutions did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.On Wednesday, half of Slide Fire’s bump stocks formatted for use with AR-15s were listed as “sold out.”The disappearance of the bump stocks from Slide Fire Solutions’ website comes one day after they vanished from the websites of hunting giant Cabela’s and Walmart.READ: Facebook tried to sell me a bump stock like the Vegas shooter used
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