Inslee signs bump stock buyback funding

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has signed a bill funding bump stock buybacks.

Legislators banned the devices in 2018 and created the buyback program at the same time, but left it unfunded. The money funds the program.

Inslee signed the measure Thursday.

Bump stocks — typically sliding butt stocks fitted as aftermarket modifications — allow a semiautomatic rifle to fire continuously by letting it slide back-and-forth against a user's shoulder, causing its trigger to 'bump' rapidly against the user's finger.

Washington's 2018 ban came in the wake of a 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting in which gunman Stephen Paddock used weapons including 14 rifles modified with bump stocks to fire over 1,000 shots into a music festival crowd there in 2017, killing 58 and wounding 413 in only 11 minutes.

Federal authorities later instituted a separate, nationwide ban.