President Donald Trump said Monday his administration is nearing a ban on bump stocks, the gun accessory that can make a semi-automatic weapon function like a machine gun. While machine guns are illegal, this accessory is not.
“We’re knocking out bump stocks,” Trump told reporters, according to Reuters. “We’re in the final two or three weeks, and I’ll be able to write out bump stocks.”
His statement comes on the one-year anniversary of the country’s deadliest shooting, when 58 people were killed at a Las Vegas country music festival.
Trump first moved towards a ban last spring, after reports revealed the Las Vegas shooter had bump stocks on at least a dozen of his weapons, greatly increasing the lethality of his attack.
The National Rifle Association, which typically opposes gun control efforts, said, when the bump stock ban was proposed, that it would not fight it.
“Devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the group said last spring, according to NBC News.
In March, the Department of Justice proposed a rule outlawing the manufacture, import, and possession of bump stocks. The change would also require any current bump stock owners to surrender or destroy the device.
The proposal had to go through a required comment period, which ended in late June.
“We are now at the final stages of the procedure,” said Trump, Reuters reports.
