I guess this is good news but I’ll believe it when it actually happens.
The National Rifle Association has joined an effort to restrict a device that was used to accelerate gunfire in the Las Vegas massacre, after the White House and top Republicans signaled a willingness to debate the issue in response to the tragedy.
“In Las Vegas, reports indicate that certain devices were used to modify the firearms involved. . . . The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the NRA’s executive vice president and chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, said in a joint statement with Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
The statement from the NRA — its first since Sunday’s shooting — was expected to galvanize the effort to further regulate bump fire stocks, or bump stocks.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said Thursday that lawmakers will consider further rules for the devices, which allow legal semiautomatic rifles to fire as rapidly as more heavily restricted automatic weapons.
“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, which left at least 58 dead and hundreds injured.