SPRINGFIELD – In the wake of the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas earlier this week, State Senator Julie Morrison (D – Deerfield) announced today she is filing legislation to ban “trigger modification devices” such as “bump stocks,” which are attachments to semiautomatic rifles that drastically increase the number of bullets fired from a weapon.

“Bump stocks serve no purpose but to inflict maximum carnage on a target and have no place in our communities,” Morrison said. “The federal loophole allowing bump stocks is essentially giving the green light for individuals to purchase and unfortunately use weapons that act just like a fully automatic weapon – which has been banned in this country since 1986.”

While Morrison is hopeful action is taken in Washington to regulate bump stocks, history has proven Congress seems unable to pass common-sense gun regulations to deal with increased mass shooting events.

Morrison also announced today her intentions to push ahead with a proposal she filed in February to give municipalities the ability to ban assault weapons. Municipalities in Illinois had the ability to ban assault weapons until 2013, when the controversial law allowing Illinois residents to carry concealed weapons was passed. It prohibited any new restriction on the local level.

North Suburban Highland Park was one community that enacted an assault weapons ban before the state prohibition went into effect. Morrison’s plan would again allow municipalities like Highland Park to regulate the firearm if local officials see fit.

“We cannot continue to act as though we don’t have a serious problem with gun violence in this country,” Morrison said. “Access to mental health care is a component to this issue that we also need to address. But the ease at which firearms and attachments that cause mass carnage are available is unacceptable and it is time we act.”