Attorney General Jeff Sessions said an announcement on regulation of bump stocks is coming “soon.”
Speaking to the National Association of Attorneys General on Tuesday morning, Sessions said he believes bump stocks — an attachment that enables a semi-automatic rifle to fire at a rate similar to an automatic firearm — can be effectively banned through regulation.
“Our top people have believed for some time that we can, through the regulatory process, not allow the bump stock to convert a weapon from semi-automatic to fully automatic,” Sessions said.
He said there will be announcement “on that soon.”
Last week, President Trump said he asked the Justice Department to regulate firearm accessory, less than a week after a Florida school shooting that left 17 dead.
“Today, I am directing the Department of Justice to dedicate all available resources to complete the review of the comments received, and, as expeditiously as possible, to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns,” Trump said in his memo that the White House released last Tuesday.
The alleged shooter in Parkland, Fla., used an AR-15 style rifle, but did not use a bump stock.
The shooter in the Las Vegas mass shooting in October did use the firearm accessory, killing 58 and injuring more than 400.
