OPEN TO look at rifle ‘bump stocks’ ban, senior GOP leaders say.
WASHINGTON — Senior congressional Republicans said Wednesday that they are open to considering legislation banning “bump stocks” like those the shooter in Las Vegas apparently used to convert semi-automatic rifles closer to fully automatic weapons.
The comments from lawmakers including the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, marked a departure from GOP lawmakers’ general antipathy to gun regulations of any kind. But they were far from a guarantee of a path forward for the new legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., especially with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan making clear that their priorities are elsewhere.
“If somebody can essentially convert a semi-automatic weapon by buying one of these and utilizing it and cause the kind of mayhem and mass casualties that we saw in Las Vegas, that’s something of obvious concern that we ought to explore,” Cornyn told reporters.
“I own a lot of guns and as a hunter and sportsman I think that’s our right as Americans, but I don’t understand the use of this bump stock, and that’s another reason to have a hearing.”
Cornyn later said he’d spoken with Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and that Grassley was interested in convening a hearing.
The devices, known as bump stocks among other names, are legal and originally were intended to help people with limited hand mobility fire semiautomatics without the individual trigger pulls required.
The devices can fit over the rear shoulder-stock assembly on a 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 Feinstein’s office.
The government gave its seal of approval to selling the devices in 2010 after concluding that they did not violate federal law.
In the House, meanwhile, Democratic Reps. Dina Titus of Nevada and David Cicilline of Rhode Island introduced a bill to ban the manufacture, possession, transfer, sale or importation of bump stocks.
“The victims and families in Las Vegas don’t need an explanation about the difference between machine guns and firearms with bump stocks. They need action,” said Titus, whose district includes the site of Sunday night’s massacre.
Feinstein has a career-long history on the issue of guns, becoming mayor in San Francisco after her predecessor was gunned down. She wrote an assault weapons ban that was in place for a decade before expiring in 2004, and said she had been considering trying to reintroduce that more sweeping legislation, as she’s done unsuccessfully after past mass shootings, including the one at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer urged her to go with a narrower bill that might be likelier to draw support.
Feinstein pleaded with the public to pressure Congress to consider her legislation after the violence earlier this week when a gunman killed at least 58 people and injured hundreds at an outdoor concert that she said her own daughter had considered attending.
“Mr. and Mrs. America, you have to stand up, you have to say ‘enough is enough,’” Feinstein said. “Why can’t we keep a weapon from becoming a military-grade weapon?”
The National Rifle Association, which has played a key role in exerting political pressure against gun curbs, did not respond to inquiries about its stance on Feinstein’s bill.
At least one Republican senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said outright that he was prepared to vote to ban bump stocks. “I have no problem in banning those,” he said.
Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican senator, said he is “interested in finding out more about bump stocks, and I’ve got my staff looking into that, and I know there are other members interested in finding out more about it, as well.”
Even so, asked Tuesday about bump stocks and whether they should be legal, McConnell, R-Ky., said it was not an appropriate time to be discussing legislation.
Ryan, R-Wis., made similar comments Wednesday in a radio interview on WISN in Milwaukee.
“What I don’t think you want your government to do is to lurch toward reactions before even having all the facts,” Ryan said. “Bad people are going to do bad things.”