Update: Nathan Borowski, a spokesman from Cabela’s corporate headquarters in Nebraska, confirmed with the Washington Examiner that the sporting goods store will no longer carry bump stocks. The store started pulling the product from shelves nationally on Tuesday.
Six different Cabela’s sporting goods stores in six different states said that they no longer sell ‘bump stocks,’ the gun accessory which allows a semi-automatic rifle to fire almost full-auto.
Cabela’s removed bump stocks from their online catalogue Wednesday, after news broke that the Las Vegas shooter purchased a firearm from their Mesquite, Nevada store and had a dozen rifles equipped with the device during the attack. Now the company appears to have pulled them altogether.
“We don’t carry bump stocks and we won’t carry bump stocks anymore. New policy,” a firearms clerk at the location in West Chester, Ohio, told me over the phone. “We sold out two days ago.”
Clerks at different stores in Illinois and Delaware said that the device was no longer available. Store staff in Virginia and Michigan said bump stocks sold out quickly after the attack and any that were left over were packed up and shipped back to the manufacturer.
“Yanked them yesterday,” a Cabela’s clerk in Richfield, Wisconsin explained. “They sent out an email yesterday. We don’t sell them now.”
A Cabela’s spokesman at the company’s corporate offices in Nebraska did not return numerous requests for comment and further information about when the company-wide email was sent.
While automatic weapons are heavily regulated and extremely difficult to obtain, the bump stock is an attachment that uses a gun’s recoil and the shooter’s shoulder to achieve rapid fire. Machine guns, for those who can even get them, often cost upwards of $20,000. Until this week Cabela’s carried bump stocks for as little as $119. No background check required.
“This stock is approved by the BATFE and does not require any special permits to use,” reads an old and since removed description of the Slide Fire bump stock on the Cabela’s website. “Quick, easy installation with no permanent modifications necessary.”
After the attack that killed 59 and wounded more than 500, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for a bump stock ban. They argue that the device converts a legal rifle into an illicit machine gun with fully automatic firepower.
Cabela’s never advertised the device as a machine gun kit and they certainly didn’t advertise bump stocks as being capable of shooting as fast as a fully automatic weapon. But they didn’t shy away from its capabilities either.
“Maximize your fun with this safe and innovative AR-15 stock, which uses bump-fire technology to shoot as quickly as desired,” the cached description for the Slide Fire AR-15 stock read, noting that the product’s quality manufacturing ensured “a lifetime of rapid-firing fun.”
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
