Originally Posted by
SteveR
But what is the point of it other than to cause mayhem. Can it be used for something else?
Not as far a I know.
Originally Posted by
Kingstepper
What's the purpose of a gun? To shoot stuff.
This means you can do it faster.
It's all pointless but someone's hobby I suppose.
There are hobbies and then...gunman may have used special device to fire faster:
Paddock could have used a Hellfire or a bump-fire device, which attach to normal semi-automatic rifles and allow them to fire more rapidly, Ayoob said. These devices are legal, but rarely used by serious shooters, he said.
“It’s hard to shoot accurately with them, and serious shooters want accuracy,” he said. He called them “not terribly popular” and “something a gun geek would want”.
For the Las Vegas shooter, though, the accuracy of these devices would not have mattered, since he was “hosing a two-acre area with 30,000 targets,” nearly every shot he fired would have hit someone.
On its website, Bump Fire Systems advertises the device as permitting “simulated full-auto firing” that is “absolutely legal”. It sells Bump Fire stocks for $99.99.
The Hellfire system uses a hand-operated crank to hit the trigger of the gun more rapidly than a person could fire it, Ayoob said, which could explain apparent changes in the pace of the fire.
Ayoob said he knew of only one previous incident in which a legally owned fully automatic gun was used in a murder. When fully automatic guns do show up in crimes, they have often been stolen, he said.
But I'm sure the NRA would protest any move to regulate their sale / ownership...