Trump navigates gun politics as he consoles Las Vegas survivors

Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump was expected to engage in one of the sad rituals of the modern presidency on Wednesday in Las Vegas: consoling survivors of a gunman’s rampage and confronting recurring questions of whether restrictions on firearms can prevent another tragedy.
While the president said he was looking forward to “paying our respects and condolences,” he and most other Republicans in Washington gave no sign of being ready to address the subject of gun control. “We’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes on,” Trump said as he departed the White House to view hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that “it’s premature to be discussing legislative solutions.”
Trump is heading to Las Vegas in the aftermath of the massacre in which 59 people were killed and more than 500 people were injured by a man who used an arsenal of rifles in a rapid-fire attack on a country music festival along the city’s entertainment strip.
The gunman, identified by police as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retiree, apparently killed himself as a SWAT team converged on his perch inside a 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The size and lethality of Paddock’s arsenal—42 rifles and handguns, including some reportedly modified to fire like a fully automatic weapon—has reignited the debate over whether the US needs to restrict gun ownership.

Public Attitudes
A majority of Americans favour some restrictions on gun sales, including expanded background checks, banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines and creating a federal database to track purchases, according to a survey conducted last spring by the Pew Research Center.
But Republicans in Congress have moved to relax gun laws in recent years rather than tighten them. After House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was critically injured in a shooting at a congressional baseball practice in June, Republicans said it didn’t show new gun laws were needed. Some suggested lawmakers should arm themselves instead.
One small impact of Sunday night’s massacre: A bill that would ease the purchase of silencers was temporarily shelved in the House after the Las Vegas shooting. Critics say the devices, which muffle the sound of gunshots, could make mass shootings even deadlier.
But there was at least a small crack in the otherwise solid Republican wall of opposition to gun control. John Thune, the party’s third ranking member in the Senate, suggested that Congress might consider legislation to restrict devices, available at gun shops and some sporting goods stores, that allow a semi-automatic rifle to mimic the rapid-fire of an automatic weapon.
The New York Times and other news organisations reported that at least one of the weapons Paddock used was equipped with such a device, known as a bump stock.
Thune, of South Dakota, said that “to turn semiautomatic weapons into virtually automatic weapons, you know, that’s something I think we’ll take a look at.” He said lawmakers first need to know more details about the weapons used in Las Vegas and how the gunman obtained them. The shooting prompted Caleb Keeter, one of the musicians who played at the music festival earlier on the day of the shooting, to change his mind on gun control.
“I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life. Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was,” Keeter, a guitarist in the Josh Abbott Band, wrote in a post on Twitter. “We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.”
Democrats in Congress and gun control advocates said symbolic statements and actions are insufficient to solve the problem.
The National Rifle Association, the nation’s biggest lobby for gun owners and manufacturers, has opposed tougher background checks, limits on semi-automatic weapons and other firearm restrictions.