From a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock rained a steady stream of bullets down on a crowd of 22,000 people attending a country music festival.
Twelve of the 23 weapons law enforcement found in Paddock’s hotel room were outfitted with bump stocks — devices that can be attached to semi-automatic rifles to dramatically increase their rate of fire.
In the aftermath of Sunday’s shooting, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reintroduced legislation she had previously brought forward that would ban the manufacture and possession of bump stocks.
The measure quickly picked up support among Democrats in the Senate. Over the course of just a few hours, 26 members signed on to co-sponsor the bill, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
A parallel measure in the House, which Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is co-sponsoring, is gaining steam.
At a news conference Wednesday announcing the legislation, Feinstein told reporters the devices contributed to the “simply stunning” numbers from the Sunday night shooting.
“One person, nine minutes, utter devastation,” Feinstein said.
The devices can be purchased online for less than $200 and easily installed to enhance the firing rate of semi-automatic weapons, she said. While a semi-automatic rifle can fire 45 to 60 rounds per minute, a bump stock can increase the rate to between 400 and 800 rounds per minute, she said.
Semi-automatics require that the trigger be pulled for each round fired, but a bump stock allows continuous firing, essentially making a rifle function as an automatic weapon.
“The only reason to modify a gun is to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible,” Feinstein said.
Sanders pointed to the federal law passed in 1986, which curtails the sale of fully automatic weapons to private citizens “for very obvious reasons,” he said.
Allowing bump stocks undermines the law the country adopted three decades ago, he said.
“Common sense suggests that we have got to do everything possible to prevent the conversion of semi-automatic rifles into automatic rifles,” Sanders said. “If not the 1986 law means nothing.”
Sanders urged action on the bill.
“While it is too late for the victims in Las Vegas, and the victims in Newtown, and the victims in Charleston, and the other terrible shootings we have seen, it is not too late to prevent the next set of innocent Americans from becoming victims,” Sanders said.
No Republicans have signed on to the legislation. At a weekly news conference Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it was “premature” to consider changes to gun laws.
However, Wednesday several Senate Republicans indicated a willingness to consider the measure.
Yet Welch said he doesn’t have high hopes for the future of the legislation in the Republican-dominated House.
“I wish I could say I did, but I don’t,” he said.
There has been “a total lockdown” on the issue of gun laws by House leadership, he said. The shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise during a congressional baseball practice earlier this year did not change the situation, Welch said.
“There’s a real divide here in Congress about moving forward on something that we absolutely need, and that is hearings and concrete legislative steps to address the epidemic of gun violence,” Welch said.
The media relations office for the National Rifle Association did not respond to a request for comment on the legislation Wednesday.
Evan Hughes, vice president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, said it is “difficult” to comment on legislation that the group has not seen or reviewed.
However, he said in a statement that laws should be in compliance with state and federal constitutions.
“The federation and its member clubs are strong supporters of laws being enacted following a deliberate legislative review process, not just based upon emotion,” Hughes said in a statement.
