What Is Shock Stock and Why Is It so Dangerous?
The shooter, who recently terrorized the Las Vegas strip, killing 59 people and injuring hundreds , used weapon modifications called “shock butts” to make his rifles even more deadly. But what are they?
Most fully automatic rifles are illegal to own, except in a few circumstances, which is why gun accessory makers have been creative. They found a way to use the rifle’s natural shooting physics as a method to increase the power of the bullet. Enter “impact stock” or “impact stock”. These are over-the-counter weapon modifications that use the recoil of a semi-automatic rifle to bounce it back and forth with the stock back and forth from the shooter’s shoulder and re-cock the weapon after each shot. While firing, the shooter must keep his finger on the trigger in place while pushing the barrel forward and pulling the pistol grip back when it “strikes”.
This essentially allows you to pull the trigger once and clean the entire clip spacer. Suddenly, a semi-automatic rifle, which usually can only fire one bullet at a time, fires in the same way as a fully automatic rifle.The video below from No Surrender Productions shows how one of the most popular shock stock brands, Slide Fire , works:
These devices are 100% legal (a semi-automatic rifle equipped with one is still not classified as an automatic weapon) and in order to use them all you have to do is replace your stock rifle stock with a hammer. Combine one of these with a 100-round magazine and you essentially have a full-fledged machine gun in your hands.
The recoil of fire when using one of themwill make the rifle terribly inaccurate , but it doesn’t really matter when you spray bullets into a crowd. Stephen Paddock, a Las Vegas gunman, installed these devices on 12 guns in the hotel room he was shooting from.
These accessories are technically legal loopholes to simulate automatic fire without breaking any laws. But soon the legality of these devices may change. On Wednesday, senior Republicans in Congress said they were willing to ban them . And Texas Senator John Cornin expressed his disgust at the modifications in question:
“I have a lot of weapons, and as a hunter and an athlete, I think this is our right, as Americans, but I don’t understand how to use this shock stock. This seems to be an obvious area that we need to look into and see if Congress needs to act in this area. ”
Other lawmakers appear to be involved in reviewing these devices, so it may be a matter of time before they disappear forever. Even on the Slide Fire homepage it says that they “… have decided to temporarily suspend new orders to provide the best possible service to those already placed.” Perhaps the end of the butt is close, and weapons reform will begin soon.