Bump (2017)

There have been so many mass shootings, more than I can remember even in a single year, that I had to look up which shooting prompted me to make this video.

It was the October 1st shooting from 2017, a big one even by American standards, with the guy in the hotel room overlooking the musical festival. He had converted his rooms into an armory, then sprayed bullets into the crowd below with his semi-automatic rifles, converted to rapid-fire by the use of a bump stock.

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The term “bump ”has a distinct meaning in discussions on the internet. On a discussion thread that has fallen too far down the list of recent discussions, a contributor may sometimes post a message containing nothing but the word “bump,” which has the effect of pushing that thread back to the top of the list of recently active threads, bringing it back to the attention of the readers. A discussion can be bumped many times.

Mass shootings are like that, bumping back to the top of the things we talk and read about in the news just after a shooting but then falling further and further down into the background. Until the next mass shooting.

With unfortunate perfect timing, I posted this project on my website late on June 13, 2014. Last night bump stocks were illegal, outlawed by the Trump Administration following the Las Vegas shooting and the discovery that his dozen rifles had all been outfitted with bump stocks. By modifying his rifles with that inexpensive accessory he could shoot a thousand rounds a minute down into the crowd and did so for eleven minutes straight.

This morning the Supreme Court struck down the interpretation of a 1930s law used by Trump’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to ban bump stocks—and so now they are legal once again.

Bump.