Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The man who unleashed hundreds of rounds of gunfire on a crowd of concertgoers in Las Vegas had two accessories that could have allowed his semi-automatic rifles to fire rapidly and continuously as if they were fully automatic weapons, officials said.

Though legally and widely available, the so-called "bump stocks" have attracted scrutiny from authorities and lawmakers in recent years.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has long expressed concern over the availability of such accessories, said Tuesday that Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock modified at least one of his weapons with a bump stock device, but she did not elaborate.

"Individuals are able to purchase bump fire stocks for less than $200 and easily convert a semi-automatic weapon into a firearm that can shoot between 400 and 800 rounds per minute and inflict absolute carnage," she said, calling for a ban on their sale.

A semi-automatic weapon requires one trigger pull for each round fired. With a fully automatic firearm, one trigger pull can unleash continuous rounds until the magazine is empty. The bump-stock devices work by manipulating the trigger mechanism extremely rapidly, far faster than a person could do so without them.

Authorities found two bump stocks in Paddock's hotel room, two officials familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press. They are investigating whether those items were used to modify weapons used in the massacre, according to the officials, who were briefed by law enforcement and spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still unfolding. Sheriff Joseph Lombardo hasn't said whether they played a role in the rampage.

Authorities say Paddock opened fire from the windows of his 32nd-floor hotel room late Sunday, killing 59 people and wounding hundreds more at a country music festival. Police stormed his room and found he had killed himself after committing the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Witnesses and law enforcement official said the quick, 50-round bursts of gunfire raised the possibility that Paddock had used a fully automatic weapon or modified his semi-automatic rifles to function like one. Paddock had 23 guns in his hotel room.

Yet the purchasing of fully automatic weapons has been significantly restricted in the U.S. since the 1930s.

In 1986, the federal National Firearms Act was amended further to prohibit the transfer or possession of machine guns by civilians, with an exception for those previously manufactured and registered.

Numerous attempts to design retrofits failed until recent years when bump stocks came on the market.

The device basically replaces the gun's shoulder rest, with a "support step" that covers the trigger opening. By holding the pistol grip with one hand and pushing forward on the barrel with the other, the shooter's finger comes in contact with the trigger. The recoil causes the gun to buck back and forth, "bumping" the trigger.

Technically, that means the finger is pulling the trigger for each round fired, keeping the weapon a legal semi-automatic.

And they continue to sell. Ed Turner, a former police officer who owns a gun shop in Stockbridge, Georgia, said he's seeing a run on bump stocks since the shooting. While he would be surprised if he had sold two of them in the past decade, he is now unable to find any available, even from wholesalers.

GOP leader says NRA-backed gun bill shelved indefinitely

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republican leaders called for unity and prayer Tuesday after the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, but offered no new legislation to tighten gun laws and said a bill to ease regulations on gun silencers would be shelved indefinitely.

"We are all reeling from this horror in Las Vegas," Speaker Paul Ryan said at a news conference. "This is just awful."

Ryan said there's no plan for the House to act soon on a National Rifle Association-backed bill to ease regulations on gun silencers. A House panel had backed the bill last month and lawmakers were expected to move ahead on the measure.

The bill is "not scheduled right now. I don't know when it will be scheduled," Ryan said.

Instead, Ryan and other GOP leaders urged prayers to unify the country and said a positive way to respond to the shooting is to donate blood. Ryan said the actions of the gunman who killed at least 59 people and wounded hundreds more will not "define us as a country. It's not who we are."

Ryan's comments came as Democrats renewed calls for gun safety legislation.

Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, pushed Congress to pass a universal background checks bill and "commonsense gun laws" to help prevent the next mass shooting.

"We can't stop the shootings that have already happened in Las Vegas, Chicago, Roseburg, Oregon, and across the nation. We failed to respond in time for those victims and their families. But if we work together, we can stop shootings in the future," Durbin said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned that the GOP-backed silencer bill could have deadly consequences.

"One of the few ways the police had to go after this shooter was they could look for the sound, try to hear the sound of where the guns came from," Schumer said on the Senate floor. "Thank God our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have pulled back on this bill."

Schumer and other Democrats noted that Republicans postponed a hearing on the silencer bill in June when House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others were shot at a congressional baseball practice.

"When two mass shootings force you to delay a bill that would make those mass shootings harder to detect and stop, maybe that's a sign you ought to let go of the bill go, once and for all," Schumer said.

Besides the silencer measure, House GOP leaders had been moving forward with a bill to allow people with concealed-carry permits to take their weapons to other states. Republicans had been upbeat about prospects for legislation, but votes on both measures seemed unlikely.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who favors gun control, said Monday it was "time for Congress to get off its ass and do something." In an outdoor news conference Monday, former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, grievously wounded in a 2011 attack, turned to the Capitol, raised her fist and said, "The nation is counting on you."

But no action was expected, as other mass shootings in Colorado, Connecticut, and Florida, and even attacks on Gifford and Scalise, failed to unite Congress on any legislative response. A bipartisan bill on background checks failed in the Senate four years ago, and since then Republicans have usually pointed to mental health legislation when questioned about the appropriate congressional response to gun violence.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Monday asked Ryan to create a select committee on gun violence to recommend legislation. A group of Democratic lawmakers asked Ryan to remove the silencer bill from the House calendar indefinitely.

In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Ryan said Congress needs to fund mental health reforms. "But if you're saying that this Republican Congress is going to infringe upon Second Amendment rights, we're not going to do that," he said.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said lawmakers should remember the good feelings they shared when Scalise returned to the Capitol last week, more than three months after the June 14 shooting.

"It's really a time that we have to heal. It's really a time to find what divides us" and put it aside, he said. "We need to find that we are stronger. We cannot allow this terror to win."