Senate panel to hold hearing on bump stocks

The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to hold a hearing on bump stocks, a firearm accessory used by the Las Vegas mass shooter last month. 

A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) confirmed on Monday that the Senate panel will hold a hearing on the devices, which can simulate automatic gunfire with a semi-automatic weapon.

“Hearing preparations have been in the works for some time. We will likely have more details on timing later on in the week,” the Grassley aide said. 

Lawmakers have honed in on bump stocks after a mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas, where nearly 60 people were killed and more than 500 injured. 

{mosads}Authorities have said a dozen of the rifles used by the suspect, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, had been modified with bump stocks.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican and a member of Grassley’s panel, told reporters earlier Monday that he and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, asked Grassley for a hearing and “he seemed amenable.”

Grassley separately told a Politico reporter on Monday that he would hold a hearing “soon.” 

Democrats, and some Republicans, have backed legislation to ban bump stocks. Though fully automatic weapons are banned, bump stocks are legal.

A group of Senate Republicans have also asked the Trump administration to review the Obama administration’s 2010 decision that a bump stock “is a firearm part and is not regulated as a firearm under the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act.”

Cornyn, who signed onto the letter, said on Monday that he had not heard back yet from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

A top manufacturer of bump stocks resumed its sale of the accessory earlier this month.