Alabama lawmaker moves ahead with push to ban bump stocks in Birmingham

Alabama Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D- Birmingham, has pre-filed her bill to ban devices in Birmingham that increase a weapon’s rate of fire.

The bill, HB62, would ban bump stocks in Class 1 municipalities, or municipalities with over 300,000 people. According to the Alabama League of Municipalities, Birmingham is the only Class 1 in the state.

The bill’s text defines a bump stock as any part, device, or accessory attached to a firearm that uses the weapon’s recoil energy to increase its rate of fire.

If Givan’s bill is signed into law, owning a bump stock in Birmingham would become a Class C felony in Alabama, which carries a sentence anywhere between 366 days and 10 years.

Givan previously told AL.com that she brought the bill in response to a call from Birmingham officials for legislators to take action.

Police say a weapon with a Glock switch was used during the September shooting outside Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge in the popular Five Points South district of Birmingham. Four people were killed and 17 others wounded.

“At least 100 shots were fired in Five Points,” Givan said in a news release. “That’s not a crime scene, that’s a war zone. A bump stock has one purpose and one purpose only; to kill or wound as many people as possible.”

In 2017, a gunman used rifles equipped with bump stocks when he killed 58 people and wounded 850 at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas, Cason reported. That led to a ban on bump stocks by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under the Trump administration. But the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the ban in June, ruling that the agency had overstepped its authority.

Givan previously pre-filed a bill to ban bump stocks statewide. Her new bill is a local bill and would apply only to Birmingham.

The bill is scheduled for its first read in the House Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security on Feb. 4.