In October 2017, a gunman opened fire at a Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas, killing 58 and wounding hundreds more. The shooter used a bump stock, a modified replacement rifle stock, to fire thousands of rounds in a 10-minute period. In response to the shooting, the Trump Administration reclassified bump stocks from a weapon accessory to an automatic weapon, effectively banning them.
For many people, that bump stocks were ever legal in the first place is incredible. Its expressed purpose to replicate an automatic weapon should have been a red flag to any legislator or bureaucrat; yet somehow this slipped through. To be fair, it’s easy to look at a bump stock and call it an accessory because it replaces an existing part of the weapon. Only by knowing its underlying intent does it becomes apparent that it has more in common with a machine gun than a scope or a sling. What’s perhaps even more interesting, however, is that this is an example of a broader, but largely unrecognized issue—disconnects in our legal code.
Sometimes laws talk past each other. Sometimes language used in one law means something different in another law. Sometimes laws are passed but regulations don’t match. Some countries work vigorously to ensure their legal code maintains coherence, while others do not. Most of the time these disconnects can be ignored, but sometimes they cause real problems. In World Leadership, I highlight them as one of the primary limitations of our current form of governance. The question is whether anything can be done about them.
In the next few articles, we will look at what greater coherence in the legal infrastructure (law, regulations, and budgetary intent at the federal, state, and local levels) could mean and at some of the emerging technologies that could help create it. Greater coherence could make government more efficient and expand its capacity for managing resources. More importantly, it could help save lives.
Reference:
Jason Hanna, “A federal bump stock ban starts today. Here’s what that means for owners,” CNN, 26 Mar 2019, retrieved from
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/25/politics/bump-stock-ban-takes-effect-tuesday/index.html
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