A suggestion by former City Councilman Dan Marvin for Lincoln to make bump stocks illegal might get an airing before the City Council.
Marvin offered the suggestion in an open letter to the council on the  Facebook page late last week after the killing of 17 students and teachers at a Florida high school.
Outlawing bump stocks — which allow an ordinary weapon to mimic a fully automatic gun — is one way to close a loophole before their sale proliferates and “we toss our arms in the air saying nothing can be done,†Marvin wrote.
A bump stock was used by the gunman who killed 58 people and injured hundreds of others in the Las Vegas massacre last October.
Two current council members, Leirion Gaylor Baird and Jane Raybould, say they are considering introducing an ordinance change to ban bump stocks.
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The city has made it illegal to possess a switchblade, Marvin pointed out. “Are we really OK with a law that prohibits a type of knife, but is silent on a device that turns a gun into a machine gun?" he asked.
Denver recently took action and made bump stocks illegal, Marvin noted in his letter.
Marvin said the country is fast approaching normalizing mass shootings with assault weapons, because of their proliferation.
While assault weapons have been used in most of the mass shootings, Marvin said efforts to remove the millions of assault weapons are beyond what he would ask of the council.
But he warned that a machine gun, whose proliferation is controlled by the National Firearms Act of 1934, is the next logical step for a disturbed individual trying to create the maximum amount of carnage.
"Let’s stop that now before machine gun deaths, just like the death through assault weapons, becomes normalized,†he wrote.
Marvin, who has been active in the Democratic Party, wrote the letter after listening to speech and debate students at Lincoln Southwest High School and thinking "the country was in great hands with future leaders such as these kids."
The next day, in Parkland, Florida, 17 students and teachers "died at the hands of a person intent on killing the most people he could, in the shortest time possible," Marvin wrote.
Denver recently made it illegal to sell, carry, store or possess bump stocks, with fines from $100 to $999 and/or jail time between 10 to 180 days. Denver police are allowing residents to voluntarily turn in bump stocks.
Council members Gaylor Baird and Raybould, who is running for U.S. Senate on the Democratic ticket, both returned email questions indicating they are looking into a similar ordinance for Lincoln.
Gaylor Baird said she has asked City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick to draft an ordinance, but wants to make sure a city ordinance won’t be counterproductive to proposed state legislation (LB780) by Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln that would ban bump stock devices statewide.Ìý
"This is about outlawing an accessory device, not a category of guns," said Gaylor Baird. It allows a legitimate gun to be turned into a machine gun that reasonable people agree don’t belong on our streets and in our schools, she said.
Gaylor Baird said she would prefer to see action at the federal or state level. "If it can’t get done, then we have responsibility to take action at the local level."  Â
The events in Florida have captured our attention, Marvin said: “That is why the time to act is now. Before we settle back into our routine and the echoes of the gunfire in Florida fade into the distance, do something.
“When a fire rages and is spreading, it is common to create a firebreak by creating a line where the out-of-control fire cannot cross,†he wrote.