“Essex Police Chief Peter Silva held up a bump stock that someone turned in this week as the Massachusetts ban on the devices went into effect,” bostoncbslocal.com reports. “‘To my knowledge, this is the only one that’s been turned in to date.'” This despite the fact simple possession of a bump fire stock in the Bay State can land an offender in jail for . . .
life. Yes, the rest of their life.
That’s a long stretch in the slammer. The longest.
Long enough to convince what were law-abiding gun owners (until last week) to turn in their bump fire stock — even though the state legislature doesn’t offer bump fire stock owners financial compensation for making their legally purchased, previous legal piece of plastic illegal?
Chief Silva says the one man who surrendered his bump stock in Essex this week explained why most are not likely to let go. “He was a little frustrated because of the fact that he’d paid a little over $250 on this piece here, and there was no redeeming value for him on the other side to recover that money.”
[Stop Handgun Violence jefe John] Rosenthal says that should not be an excuse to hold on to an illegal device.
“These are devices that are designed to kill a lot of people quickly, and I’m not sure that we ought to be compensating people for giving up these devices that never should have been purchased in the first place,” he said.
Anyway, we know that one resident of a bucolic town on the northeast tip of Massachusetts with roughly 3500 inhabitants surrendered his bump fire stock. How about bump fire stock owners in the rest of the state?
State Police said they received three bump stocks and one trigger crank, as Massachusetts now becomes the first state in the country to make the devices illegal.
So that’s four bump fire stocks and one trigger crank. Bringing the total bump fire stock relinquished to law enforcement officials to five (I used a calculator).
I reckon it’s unrealistic to expect Massachusetts law enforcement to have their sh*t together enough to coordinate bump fire stock surrender data. Certainly not within days of the ban taking effect. I also figure the pathetic numbers revealed would bring no glory to MA legislators.
So I’m not holding my proverbial breath. But I am waiting to see what happens next . . .
Will Massachusetts cops make an effort to recover bump fire stock still in the wild? What if someone in MA uses a bump fire stock during the commission of a crime? What form might police action against bump fire stock owners take?
In the state where the American revolution began, where colonists resisted their British overlords’ effort to confiscate previously legally held gun powder, deadly irony awaits.