Paul Ryan: Bump Stocks Are ‘Clearly’ Something ‘We Need To Look Into’

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., at the Pennsylvania Machine Works, a family-owned pipe-fitting manufacturer, in Aston, Pa., Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., at the Pennsylvania Machine Works, a family-owned pipe-fitting manufacturer, in Aston, Pa., Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Thursday signaled his willingness to “look into” bump stocks, a device that allows a semi-automatic riffle to fire like an automatic riffle.

Authorities believe the gunman in Las Vegas used the bump stock devices to convert his firearm into an automatic weapon when he shot and killed 58 people and wounded nearly 500 concert-goers Sunday.

I didn’t even know what they were until this week and I’m an avid sportsman and so I think we’re quickly coming up to speed with what this is,” Ryan said during an interview with MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt. “Fully automatic weapons have been banned for a long time, apparently this allows you to take a semi automatic and turns it into a fully automatic so clearly thats something that we need to look into.”

On Wednesday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation that would ban the possession of the devices as well as the selling, importing or manufacturing of them in the U.S.

Several other GOP lawmakers, like Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) have been cautiously optimistic about debating the proposed legislation.

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