WASHINGTON — Despite a report last month that the Trump administration would announce a ban on bump stocks “in the coming days,” a rule that would make it illegal to own the type of device used in the Oct. 1 shooting in Las Vegas continues to languish without any official explanation.
On Nov. 28, CNN cited anonymous sources in its report that the administration was just days away from announcing a “long-anticipated rule officially banning bump stocks” — devices that accelerate a gun’s firing rate with a single pull of the trigger.
The CNN report, which the Review-Journal could not confirm, came two months after the White House told the Review-Journal shortly before one-year anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017, attack that the Department of Justice would act soon.
In the days since the CNN report, however, administration officials have rebuffed repeated requests by the Review-Journal for comment on the status of the rule.
The revelation that the gunman had used bump stocks to accelerate his rate of fire in the shooting that left 58 concertgoers dead and hundreds injured triggered calls from Democrats and some Republicans to ban the devices.
Even gun rights groups, which generally march in lockstep in opposing new limits on firearms, split on the issue. The Gun Owners of America came out against a ban, fearing it could be expanded “to ban AR-15s and other semiautomatic firearms.” But in a sharp departure from its usual resistance to compromise, the National Rifle Association stated that it supported “tougher regulation of bump stocks.”
Progress, then silence
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters at the time that President Donald Trump was “very open” to regulation of the devices, which had been approved by the
