Gun Control: Will Any Changes Happen After Las Vegas?

WASHINGTON, DC — Before the Las Vegas shooting, Republican lawmakers had planned to vote on a measure increasing access to firearm silencers — an accessory that some say could have made the killer harder to find during Sunday night's massacre. Now, that measure is shelved as the debate about gun control ramps up.

President Trump made no mention of any policy measures to fight the kind of violence that Las Vegas experienced, acts he referred to as "pure evil." Asked about whether the shooting might have changed Trump's views on gun control, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said it was "premature to discuss policy when we don’t know all the facts.”

"We are all reeling from this horror in Las Vegas," Speaker Paul Ryan said at a news conference on Tuesday, announcing that the legislation on gun silencers is not currently scheduled for a vote. "This is just awful."

Watch: Dems, GOP Continue To Battle Over Gun Control

When faced with the stark brutality of gun violence before, GOP lawmakers have pulled back efforts to deregulate guns. Hearings for the legislation that would make it easier to buy a gun silencer were stymied after a shooter opened fire on a Republican Congressional baseball practice in June, an attack that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in the hospital for months. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Scalise only returned to Congress last week.

According to Politico, House Republicans were hoping to vote on the silencer bill in the near future. After the Las Vegas shooting, though, sources said the bill wouldn't come to the floor "anytime soon," Politico reported.

The silencer measure, called the Hearing Protection Act, is part of the Sportsman Heritage and Recreation Enhancement Act (SHARE Act). Silencers are heavily regulated, and it can take up to a month to buy them. The new legislation would make it as easy to buy a silencer as it is to buy a gun.

Silencers, despite the name, do not make gunshots silent. They suppress the sound somewhat, but the shot is still very loud. Defenders of the Hearing Protection Act say that they're useful tools for gun owners, while opponents say they could make it harder for police to respond to criminal shootings.

The SHARE Act would also loosen laws on so-called "armor-piercing bullets" and allow people with concealed-carry permits to take their guns across state lines.

Mass shootings that garner national attention frequently draw attention to gun laws.

After a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, in 2012 at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama called for strong action to reduce gun violence.

"Since I’ve been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, fourth time we’ve hugged survivors, the fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims," he said in December 2012. "We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change."

Some have shared similar sentiments in the shadow of the Las Vegas violence.

“We have become normalized and regularized to 50 people losing their lives," said Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy on the Senate floor Monday night. "The hurt is deep, the scars are wide in Newtown, but they are made wider by the fact that this body, in four and a half years, has done absolutely nothing to reduce the likelihood of another mass shooting. There's an unintentional endorsement that gets sent to these mass murderers when after slaughter after slaughter, Congress does nothing.”

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, however, was among those who denounced the notion that gun control should now be on the docket.

"Politicizing this terrible tragedy is, I think, beyond disgusting," the Republican said Monday.

Nevada's gun laws are relatively lax compared to those in other states. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a nonprofit group in favor of gun control, the state had a law requiring people under a domestic violence protective order to turn in their firearms. It also uses mental health records in background checks. However, it does not require firearms to be registered, license gun owners, restrict the number of firearms purchased at a time or impose a waiting period for buying guns.

It does not prevent the transfer or possession of assault weapons or large-capacity magazines.

Though a ballot measure was approved by voters to require background checks to transfer firearms between private parties, the state attorney general said the law was unenforceable.

The Las Vegas shooter was found to have 42 guns and high-capacity magazines in his possession at the time of the assault.

Multiple studies find that states with stricter gun control laws have many fewer gun-related deaths. Other studies show that countries with fewer guns than the the United States per person have lower rates of gun violence. Proponents of gun laws say this shows that gun laws work.

Opponents say that these studies don't prove that gun control works because there are many other factors in play.

It's also worth noting that the majority of gun-related deaths are suicides, and mass shootings in particular make up a small portion of overall gun homicides.

Officials have said the Las Vegas shooter had special devices, known as "bump-stocks," that could have converted semi-automatic firearms into fully automatic ones. Gun control proponents have long railed against the technology.

Several years ago, California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein told The Associated Press she was concerned about the emergence of the new devices.

"This replacement shoulder stock turns a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of 400 to 800 rounds per minute," she said.

A semi-automatic weapon requires one trigger pull for each round fired. With a fully automatic firearm, one trigger pull can unleash continuous rounds until the magazine is empty.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images