The powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), on Sunday said it would oppose an outright ban on bump-stock devices that the killer in the Las Vegas massacre of 58 people used to turn rifles into automatic weapons and strafe a crowd with bursts of sustained gunfire.
The NRA, which has seldom embraced new firearms control measures, stunned gun control advocates last week when it issued a statement voicing willingness to support a restriction on bump stocks.
On Sunday, the organization said it was open to regulation, but opposed any legislation banning the devices.
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“We don’t believe that bans have ever worked on anything. What we have said has been very clear — that if something transfers a semi-automatic to function like a fully automatic, then it ought to be regulated differently,” NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox said on Fox News Sunday.
Police said the gunman, Stephen Paddock, 64, fitted 12 of his weapons with bump-stock devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to operate as if they were fully automatic machine guns, which are otherwise outlawed in the US.
Cox and NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre accused the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives under Democratic former US president Barack Obama of paving the way for the use of bump stocks and creating legal confusion about their usage.
Republican US President Donald Trump, whose party controls both chambers of the US Congress, was an outspoken advocate of gun rights during last year’s campaign for the White House.
The NRA spent more than US$30 million in support of his candidacy.
Several Republican lawmakers last week suggested that they were receptive to legislation to curb the use of bump stocks, including US Representative Kevin McCarthy, the No. 2 Republican in the US House of Representatives, who said such controls were an area where the US Congress might be able to act.
However, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican who himself was nearly killed by a gunman earlier this year while at a baseball practice, was cautious on Sunday about potential new legislation.
“I do think it’s a little bit early for people to say they know what to do to fix this problem,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
LaPierre lashed out at US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who has pushed for gun control legislation on Capitol Hill.
“I think you want to tell ATF to do its job. It’s an interpretive issue and they need to get the job done, but not let Dianne Feinstein, which is what she wants to do — turn this all of this into some Christmas tree on the Hill where she brings all of her anti-gun circus she has been trying to do for years into this,” LaPierre said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
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