The proposed ban on selling or possessing bump stocks in Lincoln met with a predictable response during a public hearing at Monday’s City Council meeting.
Some opposed the ban. Banning bump stocks, which can allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at a high rate, similar to a machine gun, only empowers criminals and punishes law-abiding bump stock owners, said Brad Kreifels.
The bump stock ban allows people to feel good about "passing ineffective legislation that will do nothing for public safety and grow government control," Kreifels said.Ìý Â
The first step in the formation of a dictatorship is to disarm its citizens, he added.Ìý
But others supported the ban brought by Councilwomen Leirion Gaylor Baird and Jane Raybould.
Will Scott is a gun owner and loves the outdoors, but his eighth-grade daughter asked him if it was safe to go to school. Automatic weapons are a bad idea within the city limits, he said.
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And Joseph Couch, who is a National Guard member, said these multiburst trigger activators are not designed for accuracy but to simply activate the firing mechanism.
"I don’t see the need for them at all,†he said.
Frustration abounds at the lack of action being taken by elected officials in response to recent mass shootings, said Raybould, who is a Democratic candidate in the race for a U.S. Senate seat.
President Donald Trump has suggested banning bump stocks, but his proposal will not become a reality quickly, she added.Ìý
That's why so many municipalities are taking the lead on restricting bump stocks, she said.
Former Councilman Dan Marvin, who first proposed the idea of banning bump stocks in Lincoln in an open letter to council members, played a tape of the rapid-fire shooting in Las Vegas, where 58 people were killed and 500 wounded in an attack at an outdoor concert last year. Marvin said he didn’t want to hear that sound in Lincoln, not at a school, a church, in the Railyard, at Pinnacle Bank Arena nor in the Student Union.
To the argument that any ban is not going to stop people from using the device, Marvin said the city doesn’t stop posting speed limits simply because some people aren’t going to obey them.
“These are safe speeds to travel and we are informing the public what is a safe speed," he said.
Korey Reiman, a Lincoln attorney and parent who has formed a group called “United For Greater School Security,†suggested that the city should hire more police officers and reduce the time it takes to respond to a call.
Some of the language explaining the reason for the ban in the proposed ordinance has been modified at the suggestion of other council members, said Gaylor Baird, who's hoping she'll draw bipartisan support for the ban when the council votes on it next week.