Panetta Cosponsors the Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act

Press Release

Congressman Jimmy Panetta (CA-20) today announced that he cosponsored the Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act. Introduced by Congressman David Cicilline (RI-01), the bill would ban the manufacture, possession, transfer, sale, or importation of bump stocks like the one used to murder 59 innocent men and women and injure hundreds more earlier this week in Las Vegas.

"The American people deserve for Congress to finally put politics aside and work together to take meaningful action to prevent what happened in Las Vegas from ever happening again," said Congressman Panetta. "The Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act is a common sense solution, and a good first step in addressing our country's gun violence epidemic."

"No person should possess a device that turns a semi-automatic rifle into the equivalent of a machine gun," said Congressman Cicilline, who serves as Vice Chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. "The sole purpose of these devices is to fire as many bullets as possible as quickly as possible. I'm introducing this bill today because we cannot become a country where the carnage in Las Vegas becomes the new normal."

"The victims and families in Las Vegas don't need an explanation about the difference between machine guns and firearms with bump stocks. They need action," Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01), a member of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, said. "I am introducing this legislation with Rep. Cicilline in hopes of closing this dangerous loophole and ensuring that civilians cannot modify their guns to fire nine bullets per second. This is the least that we can do."

The Automatic Gunfire Prevention Act prohibits the sale of bump stocks, which were developed within the past decade to modify semi-automatic rifles. When replacing the fixed stock on a rifle, a bump stock allows the shooter to fire at a rate of 400 to 800 rounds per minute, replicating the rate of fire of a fully automatic weapon (or "machine gun") that propels multiple bullets with a single trigger pull.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed that the Las Vegas shooter had 12 bump stocks attached to rifles in his hotel room. Audio from the attack indicates he was able to fire his weapons at a rate of 9 bullets per second during an attack that lasted 9 to 11 minutes.

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