Disgusting:
A Republican candidate for governor in Georgia on Monday suggested that bump stocks—devices that make semi-automatic weapons act more like automatic weapons, several of which were found on the Las Vegas shooter’s guns—may have prevented further casualties in what was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
The candidate, State Sen. Michael Williams, also announced that his gubernatorial campaign would give away a bump stock “as a show of support” for the Second Amendment.
“The tragedy in Las Vegas broke my heart, but any talk of banning or regulating bump stocks is merely cheap political lip service from career politicians,” Williams said in a statement. “In reality, the bump stock is the new, shiny object politicians are using to deceive voters into believing they are taking action against gun violence.”
“Many firearms experts determined the Las Vegas shooter’s use of a bump stock actually prevented more casualties and injures due to its inconsistency, inaccuracy, and lack of control,” he claimed. “There is zero evidence that banning bump stocks would prevent any gun violence deaths.”
TPM cited Quartz to explain how bump stocks work:
“This replacement shoulder stock turns a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of 400 to 800 rounds per minute,” California senator Dianne Feinstein, who is a vocal opponent of the add-on, once explained in an interview with the AP.
Here’s how Wired succinctly describes the way a bump stock works:
That device adds a spring mechanism to the part of the rifle that presses into a shooter’s shoulder, so that the entire rifle bounces forward with every detonation of a round of ammunition. The shooter merely holds his or her trigger finger in place, and that bouncing pulls the trigger again and again at a rate that approximates machine gun fire
The devices do result in lower accuracy, since they cause the shooter to jolt. (If Paddock was using them, it probably did not make his attack less deadly, since he seemed to have been firing indiscriminately into the large crowd.)
However, Army Ranger Frankie McRae explains in the video below that that factor didn’t matter in the case of the Las Vegas shooter “Because he was firing down, he was able to use the inaccuracy of that to cover a larger area, which inflicted more damage.”
This is what we’re up against in Georgia and we have to get ready to take on GOP gun nuts like Williams. Fortunately, we have an excellent candidate in Georgia House Minority leader, Stacey Abrams (D. GA), who is destined to make history:
The GOP has held a tight grip on the governor’s mansion in Georgia since 2002, when Sonny Perdue, promising to restore the Confederate battle cross to the state flag, defeated Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes to become the first Republican to hold the position in the Peach State since Reconstruction.
But a motivated Democrat is looking to change that and shatter a glass ceiling that has never been broken in the United States.
Stacey Abrams, the Georgia House minority leader who holds degrees from Spelman College and the Yale School of Law, is seeking to become America’s first black female governor.
“It’s a very humbling experience to know that, if I win this election, I would have achieved something that black women, as far back as Barbara Jordan and Shirley Chisholm, have fought for, not necessarily the same job, but transforming how we think about leadership in America,” Abrams said in an interview with the NNPA Newswire. “Physically claiming that mantle of leadership and holding it signals that anything is possible and we can redefine what leadership looks like and who we can lift up.”
Abrams, 43, said she’s undaunted by the stranglehold the GOP has had on the governor’s mansion for the past 15 years.
She said Georgia will likely be a majority-minority state in the coming years which provides Democrats more of an opportunity to claim the seat next year.
Abrams noted that Democrats have gained steamed, citing the 2006 race where the party lost by nearly 400,000 votes but significantly closed the gap during the last election in 2014, coming within less than 200,000 votes of victory.
Four Republicans — Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle; Secretary of State Brian Kemp; state Sens. Hunter Hill and Michael Williams; and two Democrats, Abrams and state Rep. Stacey Evans — have declared their candidacy for the post.
The New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan voter registration group that Abrams launched three years ago, may also help her candidacy.
“It’s the single largest voter registration effort in recent memory in Georgia and we have been able to register more than 200,000 people of color in Georgia to vote,” Abrams said. “I just don’t talk, I have a record that we need to talk about.”
Click here to donate and get involved with Abrams’ campaign.