Gun owners are rushing to buy the same high capacity rifle magazines and bump stocks that were used in the Las Vegas massacre in fear that they are about to be made illegal.
Several online retailers are sold out of magazines including a $189 SureFire model which holds 100 bullets and another, for $149, which holds 60 rounds.
Both were found inside Stephen Paddock’s suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel on Sunday along with a stash of other weapons and accessories which he used to slaughter 58 people and injure 489 at the Route 91 Harvest Festival.
He had also used an AR-15 bump stock to modify his semi-automatic rifle into a fully-automatic weapon.
Democrats are now pushing for the legal bump stock, which costs between $50 and several hundred dollars, to be outlawed.
It has prompted an ‘overnight’ boost in sales and online traffic for firearms dealers across the country.
One employee at the Pennsylvania based website told DailyMail.com they had never sold one of the $189 100 round SureFire magazines before Sunday’s shooting but they are now out of stock.
The MAG-5 60 and 100, which were both found inside Stephen Paddock’s Mandalay Bay hotel suite after Sunday’s shooting, have sold out on the manufacturer’s website
The magazine has also sold out on GunMag Warehouse, another retailer which sells it
One of Paddock’s 23 weapons is shown above, lying on the floor of his hotel room, after Sunday’s shooting. It is fitted with an AR-15 bump stock (at the rear) and a high capacity gun magazine
Customers are also searching en masse for the bump stock Paddock used to modify his weapons.
‘People are landing on our website actually looking for them. It wasn’t a seller for us but there was a ton of demand for it once people knew.
‘Never did we get even a call for them and then all of a sudden, overnight, we had more traffic than we ever had,’ Paul Ross, a customer services representative for BigArmory.com, said on Thursday.
The online retailer, which sells only firearms accessories but no actual weapons, ran out of them seven months ago.
They were never a best-selling item and limited stock was ordered in the first place but the stocks are now in high demand.
The same trend is being seen with the high capacity magazines.
‘People think they’re going to get banned. We never had sold one prior [to the shooting] then all of a sudden, people just panicked. There has definitely been an increase,’ Ross added.
On the few websites of retailers who are still advertising the bump stock, like USA Midway, it is sold out
A bump stock similar to the one used by Paddock to modify his semi-automatic rifle is shown above at the Good Guys Gun Shop in Orem, Utah
Slide Fire, one of the online retailers which sells the bump stocks, suspended orders this week
Reiterating that the site performs background checks on anyone who places orders and that it does not ship to states where the products are illegal, Ross said the majority of the website’s customers were ‘upstanding citizens’ who were merely taking precautions against potential changes to the law.
The majority of the boosted traffic is coming from Arkansas, Tennessee and Michigan, he added.
‘Gun owners are a very experienced bunch. If you have been a gun owner for 15 or 20 years, you see all that stuff that happens with regulations and people get worried that they will be banned.
‘The same thing happened when machine guns were banned in 1986. It’s basic supply and demand,’ he said.
GunMag Warehouse is offering 30% off some magazines, warning customers in an eye-catching advert on its homepage to ‘stock up while you can!’.
Big Armory, another retailer, said it received ‘insane’ traffic after the shooting. It has sold out of several gun magazines since
GunMag warehouse offered a 30 percent off sale on Wednesday and urged customers to ‘stock up while you can’
Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill on Wednesday to outlaw the bump stocks used in the attack
Magazines were a small part of the enormous arsenal of weaponry, ammunition and accessories found inside Stephen Paddock’s hotel suite on Sunday night.
He had purchased all of his 23 weapons legally and used a legally bought bump stock to transform some of them into fully automatic weapons.
Talk has turned to whether the accessories – which transform semi-automatic rifles into rapid fire killing machines – should be outlawed as a result of the shooting.
In just 13 minutes, Paddock was able to use the weapons to murder 58 and injure 489.
One website which sells bump stocks has suspended its business.
In an announcement on its website, Slide Fire made no mention of the atrocity but said it halted sales in order to ‘provide the best service’ to orders that have already been placed.
BumpFire systems, a Texas website which sells the accessory, has disabled its website. Cheap as Dirt, another retailer, has removed the product from its site.
The gunman was found dead next to shell casings and rifles on Sunday night after slaughtering 58 people and injuring hundreds more
More weapons were found inside the tub of his suite and strewn across the floor. All were bought legally and amassed by Paddock over several years
But BigArmory.com stood by the business’s practices and said that no changes to the law would stop ‘crazy, disturbed’ people from carrying out acts of terror.
‘If he didn’t have 100 round magazine, he could still do the same damage.
‘You could still do damage no matter with what you have,’ Ross said of Paddock owned 47 guns in total.
‘No amount of gun control will stop a crazy person,’ said firearms accessories dealers of Stephen Paddock (above)
‘Not everybody is always in the right state of mind. No amount of gun control or regulation can stop a crazy person.’
He added that most of the people seeking out the magazines wanted to use them recreationally and pointed out that ‘not even the military’ use magazines with 100 round capacity.
Ross added however that it was ‘laughable’ to suggest that a person only needed one shot to defend themselves in a hostile situation.
On Wednesday, California Dem. Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed a bill to Congress to outlaw the bump stocks used by Paddock in Sunday’s shooting.
Republicans slammed the effort, saying it was ‘too soon’ to ‘politicize’ the tragedy while authorities continued investigating it.
The gun sellers who sold Paddock his weapons said they felt ‘ill’ after learning about how he’d used them.
One who worked at Guns and Guitars near the shooter’s Mesquite home however said he had followed the law.
‘We did everything right and we can’t control what someone does once they leave this store,’ manager Christopher Sullivan told CBS.