Mike Bloomberg offers to ‘match every donation’ to fight gun violence

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) says he will match donations to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group he founded, after the national debate over gun laws was reignited this week after the mass shooting Sunday in Las Vegas.

“US has a gun violence problem. @Everytown & @MomsDemand are working to solve it. I’ll match every donation. Give now,” Bloomberg, a longtime advocate for stricter gun control laws, wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

US has a gun violence problem. @Everytown & @MomsDemand are working to solve it. I’ll match every donation. Give now https://t.co/UN92mmx3OU

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) October 4, 2017

The announcement came days after a gunman opened fire on a Las Vegas music festival from his room in a nearby hotel. The shooting left 58 people dead and hundreds more injured.

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The gunman, identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, was found dead in his hotel room in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. At least 23 guns were found in the room. 

The shooting has reignited a national debate over gun control, with particular attention paid to “bump stocks” — devices used to modify semi-automatic rifles to mimic the speed of automatic weapons.

Private citizens are, in most cases, already banned from possessing automatic weapons. 

The National Rifle Association, the country’s most powerful lobby group for gun rights, said Thursday that it would support an effort to restrict bump stocks — an unusual move for a group that has long pushed back on efforts to impose new firearms regulations.