Slide Fire Shutting Down Websites and Orders May 20th, 2018

U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Ever since the Las Vegas shooting where Steven Paddock fire down on a crowd from a room at the Mandalay Bay killing 59 people attending a country music concert people have been pushing for a bump stock bans. Paddock had several AR-15s with the device installed.

Efforts in Congress have stalled to ban the product, but several states have enacted local bans of the device. Jeff Sessions has directed the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco to look into the bump stocks to see if they violate the NFA.

According to Rick Vasquez who was a senior analyst in the ATF technology branch, the device doesn’t violate the NFA. Rick Vasquez wrote the original decision.

The Justice Department with Trump’s approval “would define ‘machine gun’ to include bump-stock-type devices under federal law – effectively banning them,” Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

By using regulation, the ATF is sidestepping the legislative branch of the federal government. Gun rights advocates worry that this could be a slippery slope that could be used in the future to ban anything without congressional approval. They also fear that the new regulation can be used to ban things such as match triggers since they speed up the rate of fire of a rifle.

Pressure mounted on companies that produce bump stocks. The biggest of these companies is Slide Fire. Slide Fire was a pioneer in building bump stocks.

Side Fire announced Tuesday that they would shut down their website on May 20, 2018. Slide Fire will fulfill all orders up to that point, but they will not accept any future orders.

“I built something, and a madman is taking it all away,” Company founder, Jeremiah Cottle, told Fortune magazine

It is unclear if the Slide Fire is totally shutting down operations, or if they are just shutting down the internet sales portion of their company. Request to the company for clarification was not returned by the time of publishing.

Gun owner groups are speaking out about Slide Fire decision including Gun Owners of America.

“It’s sad, but not surprising, that Slide Fire is closing its doors. What should surprise gun owners is that it was a Republican administration that put a gun parts maker out of business — especially since the Obama administration had refused to take such a course of action on several occasions,” said Executive Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA) Erich Pratt. “But then again, there has been so much misinformation on bump stocks. Even the news surrounding Slide Fire’s closing has consistently misconstrued bump stocks as items that can convert a semi-automatic into a machine gun. That’s just not the case.”

Gun control groups along with shooting survivors Devon Prescott, Brooke Freeman and Tasaneeporn Upright sued Slide Fire over the Las Vegas shooting. The plaintiffs in the case accused Slide Fire of behaving negligently by producing and selling the devices.

One of these groups was the Brady Center. The Brady Center was named after James Brady who was shot in an attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. They were successful in the implementation of federal background checks.

“Whether it was our lawsuit, business realities, or the impending federal regulation against bump stocks that led to this decision, we don’t know yet,” said Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Center to Fortune. Their lawyer added, “I’m sure in the lawsuit, we’ll learn more about their announcement about closing their website and what they plan to do with their assets.”

There are still other companies selling bump stocks including Bump Fire Systems. Ammoland reached out to several of these companies to see what their future plans are in the face of Slide Fire shutting down their website. Bump Fire Systems and the other companies did not return our emails at the time of publishing.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.