Congressman David Young.
Two of the Republicans in Iowa’s congressional delegation are calling on the Trump Administration to quickly review federal regulations on so-called “bump stocks.” The device was used by the sniper in last week’s mass shooting in Las Vegas.
“I can’t think of a good reason why these things are existing,” Republican Congressman David Young of Van Meter said Friday on IPTV’s “Iowa Press” program.
Young said he had no idea what a bump stock was before last week’s news stories about the product.
“My understanding is it is basically a tool, an accessory to make a legal weapon into an illegal weapon,” Young said. “And so I’m reaching out with my colleagues to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to revisit their ruling in 2010 when they decided not to regulate these.”
Young is not calling for congress to pass a law banning the sale of bump stocks. In the U.S. Senate, Iowa Republican Joni Ernst and a handful of other senators wrote a letter asking the ATF to “swiftly review” its permitting of bump stocks which “turn semi-automatic rifles into fully automatic weapons.”
Senator Chuck Grassley isn’t rejecting the idea the Senate Judiciary Committee might hold a hearing on legislation that would ban the sale of bump stocks. Grassley, though, has said he needs to “think through” the consequences since a bill that clears his committee could spawn a debate on the senate floor on a number of other gun-related proposal.
Republican Congressman Steve King tweeted on the “slippery slope” subject last Wednesday, asking: “How do good people defend themselves from murderers if liberals take our guns?”
The National Rifle Association last week called on the ATF to conduct an administrative review of its prior ruling on bump stocks.