I have probably shot 10K rounds on full-auto and bump stocks are not full auto. I called the FBI a day after the LV shooting and told them that the guy was not using a FA-sear. "No Sir, that was indeed full-auto." Days later they release that it was a bump-stock. Bump stocks and binary triggers are less "efficient" that semi-auto shot placement.
That's not a good reason for not banning them. You can't prevent people making pipe bombs at home. Does that mean they shouldn't be illegal? So why should it be any different for high capacity mags?
I have probably 30 AR mags and 15 MP5 mags. Govt would be forced to retroactively criminalize the mags. We'd have a Civil War. Gun nuts love them mags!
Actually the results of the ban are not as clear, as you may have implied. See the internet re this topic. There is quite a bit of discussion, and at the end of the day one can not claim legitimately that the ban, especially if it had been augmented with control of magazine size on other semi-automatics, would not produce a shift in statistics in the desired direction. It isn't a clear cut issue at this point. My own observation is that the some of the studies (perhaps most) should be considered invalid for the purpose of evaluating the effect of an assault style weapons ban, because of insufficient granularity in the data. That is to say, shootings data was in many cases not broken down by number of victims per event, which is necessary to separate the effect of the ban from shootings in general. When one looks at the drop in the number of Assault Style guns used in gun crimes during the ban, it appears that the ban was actually quite effective in that regard. The idea is to reduce the probability of mass shootings. As mass shootings today are more frequent than they were in the 1990s, with appropriate granularity today's data could be expected to show a significant drop in mass shootings if assault style weapons were banned today along with control of magazine size in other semiautomatic weapons being introduced. When legislation is clearly defective in light of its intended aim, no one should be surprised that its effect is somewhat less than might have been hoped for. A example drawn from endless other examples that could be drawn of clearly defective legislation dealing with gun control would be legislation requiring background checks that does not cover gun transactions between private parties or at gun shows! from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban In 2004, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence examined the impact of the Assault Weapons Ban, On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapon Act. Examining 1.4 million guns involved in crime, "in the five-year period before enactment of the Federal Assault Weapons Act (1990–1994), assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of the crime gun traces ATF conducted nationwide. Since the law's enactment, however, these assault weapons have made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF has traced to crime. Page 10 of the Brady report, however, adds that "an evaluation of copycat weapons is necessary". Including "copycat weapons", the report concluded that "in the post-ban period, the same group of guns has constituted 3.1% of ATF traces, a decline of 45%."[32] A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) stated that he "can in no way vouch for the validity" of the report.[33] (Underlining is mine.)
All bans accomplish that. It will keep the marginal owner from acquiring an AR. The LV shooter was not an enthusiast, so it may have slowed him down, but suppose we had an AWB and the guy was forced to buy a pre-ban gun. LV guy had a $3,000 7.62x51 AR-10. He had some direct-impingement AR-15s as well. A $2,500 Colt LE6920 goes for $1K. Post-ban maybe $2.5K. It reduces to simple economics/elasticity of demand.
Sure, you cannot hit the things retroactively. I mean, how many illegal SBRs are out there? NRA guys would probably laugh as they have their mattresses lined with PMAGs.