Bump stock manufacturer seeks Las Vegas shooter's estate

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The largest manufacturer of bump stocks, the firearm attachments used by the Las Vegas gunman in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, has filed a claim against the deceased gunman's estate that could divert money expected to go to victims' families.

Slide Fire Solutions, LP, said in a filing in a Nevada court last month that it may be entitled to a portion of Stephen Paddock's estimated $1 million estate, arguing that Paddock's estate should share in any damages in a separate class action lawsuit against the bump stock manufacturer.

Slide Fire contends that Paddock, not a bump stock, caused the 2017 shooting in which 58 people were killed and hundreds injured at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Texas-based Slide Fire, which stopped taking orders and shut down after the shooting, said Paddock's actions exposed the company to liability claims and his estate should share in any claims the company may be forced to pay in the separate lawsuit.

“Slide Fire, their creditor’s claim, will in effect wipe out the entire estate,” probate attorney Alice Denton, attorney for the special administrator of Paddock’s estate, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

F. Thomas Edwards, an attorney for Slide Fire, did not return a message seeking comment Friday.

Investigators said Paddock killed himself as police closed in on his hotel rooms in a tower of the Mandalay Bay casino-resort overlooking the country music festival that he fired upon.

Police and the FBI determined Paddock meticulously planned the attack and acted alone. They theorized he may have sought notoriety, but said they never determined a clear motive for the attack.

In addition to Paddock's homes in Reno and Mesquite, Nevada, his estate included 49 guns worth at least...