Gun sights lowered
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Rifle accessory that allows automatic fire should be regulated, says House speaker.
they were fully automatic machine guns, which are otherwise outlawed in the United States.
Authorities said his ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute over the course of 10 minutes from his perch in a 32nd-floor hotel suite was a major factor in the high casualty count of 58 people killed and hundreds wounded. Paddock, 64, killed himself before police stormed his suite.
The carnage on Sunday night across the street from the Mandalay Bay hotel ranked as the bloodiest mass shooting in modern US history, surpassing the 49 people shot to death last year at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The influential National Rifle Association (NRA), which staunchly opposed moves to tighten gun control laws following the Orlando massacre and others, said on Thursday that bump stocks, which remain legal, “should be subject to additional regulations”.
Senior Republicans also signalled they were ready to deal with the sale of bump stocks – an accessory gun control advocates regard as work-arounds to bans on machine-guns. “Clearly that’s something we need to look into," House Speaker Paul Ryan told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.
“I didn’t even know what they were until this week ... I think we’re quickly coming up to speed with what this is,” Ryan said.
The No 2 Republican senator had called for a review of bump stocks a day earlier. Democrats were already urging new legislation, as the shooting reignited the long-standing US debate over regulation of gun ownership, protected under the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
US Representative Steve Scalise, a member of the Republican House leadership who is himself a victim of gun violence, voiced concern that hasty congressional action to restrict bump stocks could lead to wider limits on “the rights of gun owners”.
“There are people who want to rush to judgment,” Scalise said in an MSNBC interview on Thursday.
The NRA called for the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to address bump stocks by regulation. – Reuters