House

Dem pulls support of gun rights bill after Las Vegas shooting

by Lydia Wheeler - 10/05/17 1:43 PM ET

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) withdrew his support Wednesday for a Republican-backed bill making its way through the House that would make it easier to buy attachments that quiet guns.

The Hearing Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), would make buying a gun suppressor, also commonly known as a silencer, as easy as purchasing a gun.

The legislation, which has been included in a broader sportsmen bill, removes suppressors from the purview of the National Firearms Act and requires buyers go through an instant background check rather than a registration process, which can take up to a year.

DeFazio signed on as a co-sponsor of the standalone bill in June but withdrew his support on Wednesday — three days after a gunman opened fired on a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more.

In a statement to The Hill, DeFazio said he withdrew his support for the bill in light of Sunday’s “horrific events.”

“I believe that Congress should focus on bipartisan efforts to investigate the causes of and lessen the potential for gun violence in America, rather than the Hearing Protection Act,” he said.{mosads}

“I’d like to see what the investigation into the shooting in Las Vegas reveals and whether a suppressor would have allowed this monster to create even more carnage.”

Reps. Gene Green (Texas), Henry Cuellar (Texas) and Collin Peterson (Minn.) were still listed as Democratic co-sponsors of the standalone bill as of Thursday afternoon.

On the floor Wednesday, DeFazio said he believes the Republican leadership should formally withdraw the sportsman bill, which he said has “many objectionable provisions.”

He told The Hill that Congress should take action to ban bump stocks or anything that allows a semi-automatic weapon to fire nearly as rapidly as an automatic one.

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