Bump stocks, however, remain illegal in Florida. They were banned here in 2018 when then-Governor Rock Scott signed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act following the horrific school shooting in Parkland. While bump stocks were not used in that shooting, they were part of several other gun control measures.

What are bump stocks?

Semi-automatic firearms generally fire one bullet each time you pull the trigger. Automatic firearms fire continuously as long as you keep the trigger pulled. In 1934, the United States passed the National Firearms Act, which, among other restrictions and regulations, banned “machine guns” (fully automatic weapons) in most cases. This definition was expanded in 1968.

Fully automatic weapons are subject to strict regulations in the United States and are generally prohibited for civilian use. Devices that convert a semi-automatic weapon into a fully automatic weapon are also prohibited.

A “bump stock”, also called a “bump fire stock” or “slide fire” after the company that invented it, is a device that allows a semi-automatic weapon to fire much faster, closer to the speed of a fully automatic weapon. It replaces the standard stock (the part that rests against the shooter's shoulder) on a semi-automatic rifle and uses the weapon's recoil to “bump” the trigger into the shooter's finger much faster than the shooter could probably fire without it.