Fully Automatic Bullet Buttons

[AnimalLover10]

I saw this video earlier today that shows how a "bullet button" makes guns into automatic assault guns. I don't know enough about guns to know how this works. The news said that this is what the terrorists used in California.

My questions are:

How is this even legal?

Why is the media not reporting this?

[Kennah]

1. These are known as bump triggers and they aren't new

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_fire

Probably first appeared in the 80s, if not the 70s.

They used to be crap, but appear to have become very high quality, which should disturb and enrage.

Couldn't find anything on the ATF website, but I know they track the development of these devices.

Cannot say that I understand why ATF hasn't gone after them harder, other than the political climate won't allow it.

My understanding is that the legal definition of a machine gun allows most of these devices to be bought, sold, and USED with no laws violated.

[krispos42]

2. I don't know what that was.

It wasn't a bump-fire stock, as the receiver didn't move independently of the buttstock.

The beginning was weird.

Whatever it was it seemed to be replacing the selector lever.

[DonP]

5. The picture looks like a magazine release button

I've built 4 ARs from parts so far and that doesn't look like it would fit anywhere in the fire control group.

The media folks may be confusing the function of a DIAS (Drop In Auto Sear) or Lightning Link with the "bullet button" which, IIRC, was a way to get around the California fixed magazine requirement, because technically it "required a tool" (the bullet button operated by pressing it in with the tip of a cartridge), to load the magazine.

Combine it with some stock footage of somebody bump firing and voila! A "magic" button that turns a gun full auto.

Not that the media people have ever been technically ignorant and sensationalized things regarding firearms.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

The video is satire, stem to stern. The 'Bullet Button' is a workaround to California law that makes a detachable mag a high capacity assault rifle classification. The 'bullet button' requires a 'tool' (in this case, a spare round) to eject the mag, satisfying the legal requirement as a fixed magazine.

Has nothing to do with bump fire. Not a slide stock. Nothing to do with Semi/FA fire.

You got punked by the authors of the video.

(The rifle in the video is a genuine NFA fully automatic weapon, not even a bump-fire.)

[krispos42]

3. I'm not familiar with what they were doing to that rifle

I do know it's not illegal to pull a semi-auto trigger really really fast.

You can do it simply by holding a rifle waist level, sticking your thumb through the triggerguard and hooking it on your belt loop. With the safety off and a round in the chamber, of course. With your other hand you then pull the rifle forward.

At some point while pulling on the rifle, your (immovable) thumb will trip the trigger, the gun will shoot, the recoil will force the gun backwards so the trigger resets, your off hand will pull the rifle forward again.... repeat until empty.

Look on YouTube for "bump fire".

Somebody out there even makes a spring-loaded bump-fire sick so you can shoulder the gun while doing it.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. That's a real one.

That's not even bump fire.

It's like a California-legal catalytic converter for your car. The one that's legal for 49 states is 200 bucks, the California legal one is 900$ to eek out a couple more percentage points.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California#Bullet_button

[Snobblevitch]

4. This video is an attempt at satire.

Did you notice the reference to "all 57 states?" They showed a belt with cartridges. The AR-15 is fed by a magazine, not a belt. Green tipped ammo is not "environmentally friendly" and does contain lead. Firearms cannot be purchased on-line and legally shipped straight to your home. The video is just somebody's idea of humor and you have been duped.

A bullet button is a button on a California compliant AR-15 in which a bullet is used to press a button to remove the magazine. In other states, the magazine can be ejected without the use of a "tool."

Edit to add: "...assault features used for assaulting stuff." The base of the magazine is used to take Instagram photos. The silencer makes the gun quiet like in the movies. Also, there was a round stovepiped so that gun would not fire anyway until the jam is cleared. There are many details in this video to indicate it was made in an attempt to get a reaction. The guys who made the video would love it if some reporter did a story about it, (or if an anti-RKBA elected official made an issue of it).

[Straw Man]

6. Your leg has just been pulled.

I hope it wasn't too painful.

[friendly_iconoclast]

12. Exactly. At least one commenter on YouTube "got" it:

this is wrong. the bullet button on the ar-15 enables universal mode and allows it to fire any type of ammunition. this is why the us military uses the ar-15, it allows them to fire captured ak-47 ammunition if they run low in a firefight. i know this to be true because a friend of mine was a us special forces marine sniper scout, and he used this feature all the time to fire the ak-47 ammunition in his sniper ar-15, since the .308 bullet has a greater range than the weaker 5.56 bullet.

[ManiacJoe]

7. Everything in that video is factually wrong.

It took me a few seconds to realize that it is meant as a joke.
The poor attempt at satire even caught a few Youtube commenters.

A "bullet button" is a device used to limit how you remove the magazine from the gun for reloading. It has nothing to do with making the gun full-auto and nothing to do with how fast the gun can fire.

[davepc]

10. See, this is why the specifics of terminology and technology matter...

So you know when somebody is pulling your leg with nonsense.

[bolus]

11. its a select fire rifle

You can tell its a select fire rifle (has a lever that changes the gun from safe to semi-auto to full auto). He flips the switch before demonstrating the fake bullet button.

The select fire parts are legal. Since they are not legal to make anymore for the general public, the ones on the market are a very scarce part that were last made decades ago. You will pay something like $20,000 for one. Then you apply for a NFA tax stamp for it and wait 2-3 months before you can legally add it to the firearm. That's why you dont see any fully automatic rifles used in crimes.

The bullet button is a way to make it difficult to change the magazine. Its very easy for a criminal to replace with a normal mag release. You dont even need tools to do it, so it does nothing to stop criminals.

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. The reference to "57 states" in the video didn't clue you that this is satire?

[benEzra]

14. A "bullet button" is a magazine release button, and this video is satire.

It is also an excellent demonstration of Poe's law, in that it is nearly indistinguishable from actual scaremongering by the corporate media.

[pablo_marmol]

15. As a CA resident, I knew there was a joke involved just from the title.

My "evil black rifle" has a BB, and amazingly is incapable of fully automatic fire.