Automatic Rifles Are Banned. Here’s How the Las Vegas Shooter Could Have Gotten One

Anyone who has watched the sickening video clips of Sunday night’s Las Vegas mass shooting has heard the sound. It’s a staccato crackle of gunfire at a rhythm that almost resembles the cadence of a helicopter’s blades, far faster than a human being could repeatedly pull a trigger. That’s not the sound of the typical semi-automatic rifle owned by millions of Americans, but of an automatic one—or of a semi-automatic that’s been modified to be nearly as deadly.