Shooting adds fire to U.S. guns debate
WASHINGTON • The mass shooting that killed at least 59 people in Las Vegas on Sunday night is expected to rekindle the debate in Congress over federal gun control. But recent efforts in the Republican-led House have centred around loosening firearms laws, not tightening them.
Acts of mass gun violence, including last year’s massacre at an Orlando nightclub and the June shooting at a congressional GOP baseball practice in Virginia have done little to change the strong partisan divide on the issue. Most Democrats argue the incidents heighten the need for tighter gun laws, while most Republicans think Americans should have a greater ability to protect themselves.
Last month, a House committee advanced a bill, the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, that would make it easier to buy firearm silencers — which are treated akin to machine guns and explosives by federal authorities. Advocates of the measure, including the National Rifle Association, have cast it as a safety enhancement.
“The bill streamlines outmoded processes for acquiring this equipment to reduce hearing damage for sportsmen and noise at shooting ranges near residential areas,” said a summary prepared by the House Natural Resources Committee, which passed the bill on a partyline vote last month.
The legislation also includes provisions that would loosen restrictions on transporting firearms across state lines and prevent certain types of ammunition from being designated as “armour-piercing” and thus subject to tight federal oversight.
Opponents of the measure say that the silencer provision, in particular, could make it harder to identify a shooter during an incident such as the one in Las Vegas.
“Hunters need armourpiercing bullets? They need silencers?” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters last month. “If you can hear, you can run to where the tragedy is emanating from.”
Other bills introduced this Congress propose other rollbacks to federal gun laws, including measures that would mandate that a concealed-carry permit issued in one state be honoured in all other states. But those bills have not proceeded as far as the silencer legislation.
Republicans who reacted to the violence in Las Vegas early Monday did not call for any legislative response to the shooting. Law enforcement officials have not released details about the types of weapons that were used or whether they were obtained legally.
Videos of the initial gunfire in Las Vegas appeared to indicate the use of a fully automatic, machine-guntype weapon. Such firearms are tightly regulated and require a special licence to own. Weapons of that type manufactured after 1986 generally cannot be privately owned.