NRA speaks up,

WASHINGTON • The National Rifle Association announced its support Thursday for regulating “bump stocks,” devices that can effectively convert semiautomatic rifles into fully automated weapons and that were apparently used in the Las Vegas massacre to lethal effect.

It was a surprising shift for the leading gun industry group, which in recent years has resolutely opposed any gun regulations. Immediately afterward the White House, too, said it was open to such a change.

Earlier Thursday, leading congressional Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan said that Congress should take a look at the devices, which were littleknown even to gun enthusiasts prior to Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas. A gunman pumped bullets from a casino highrise into a crowd of concertgoers below, killing 58 and wounding hundreds, apparently using legal “bump stocks” to increase firing speed from his semi-automatic weapons.

“The National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law,” the NRA said. “The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”

The statement from the NRA was expected to galvanize the effort to further regulate so-called bump stocks.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, RCalif., and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., said lawmakers will consider further rules for the devices.

“Clearly that’s something we need to look into,” Ryan said on MSNBC. He said he did not know what bump stocks were before Sunday’s shooting.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in response to the NRA statement, “We welcome that and a conversation on that . ... It’s something we’re very open to.”

President Donald Trump had discussed the issue with lawmakers on the way back from visiting Las Vegas on Wednesday, according to Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, who travelled with the president aboard Air Force One.

“Bump stocks” originally were intended to help people with limited hand mobility fire a semi-automatic without the individual trigger pulls required. They can fit over the rear shoulder-stock assembly on a semi-automatic rifle and with applied pressure cause the weapon to fire continuously, increasing the rate from between 45 and 60 rounds per minute to between 400 and 800 rounds per minute, according to the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who introduced legislation this week to ban them.

The government gave its seal of approval to selling the devices in 2010 after concluding that they did not violate federal law.