NRA calls for federal review of bump stocks after Vegas shooting

The NRA is speaking out for the first time after the Las Vegas shooting.

ByABC News
October 6, 2017, 1:20 AM

— -- The National Rifle Association is calling for a federal review of bump stocks, a weapon modifier that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire faster.

The NRA, in its first statement since the Oct. 1 shooting in Las Vegas, said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives should "immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law."

"The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations," the statement reads.

The full statement, issued jointly by NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and the head of its legislative arm Chris Cox, opens by addressing "the evil and senseless attack in Las Vegas."

"Unfortunately, the first response from some politicians has been to call for more gun control," the statement reads.

LaPierre elaborated during an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity" Thursday night, saying, "The other side has been so outright trying to politicize this tragedy that we did feel the need to speak out today on this whole bump stock issue. I, for years, have tried to correct the media on semi-automatics. When they said they were fully-automatic firearms, when Dianne Feinstein and Schumer and all the rest of them said they were machine guns, for years I set the record straight, and then the Obama administration a couple years ago approves this device called a bump stock."

He continued, "If you take a look at it, it takes a semi-automatic firearm and makes it perform like a fully-automatic firearm. It makes it function like one, and what the NRA has said is we ought to take a look at that and see if it is in compliance with federal law and if it's worthy of additional regulation. That being said, we didn't say ban, we didn’t say confiscate."

The shooting in Las Vegas left 58 people dead and hundreds of others injured after gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowd at a country music festival.

Bump stocks, which were found rigged to some of Paddock's weapons, can be bought legally for $99 to $299 and manipulate a rifle's stock so that when a trigger is pulled the recoil is seamless, giving the shooter the ability to pull a trigger and fire bullets with almost imperceptible stoppage.

While bump stocks simulate the same action of an automatic firearm, they are not fully automatic and so have not been banned by the ATF.

The NRA's statement comes hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in an interview with MSNBC that a ban on bump stocks is "clearly something we need to look into."

ABC News' M.L. Nestel and Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.