Back in the United States, mourners came together in Las Vegas, Nevada, Monday to commemorate one year since 58 people were killed and more than 850 others wounded at a country music festival, in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Hotels along the famed Las Vegas Strip dimmed their marquee lights as officials read the names of the victims at the dedication of a memorial garden, and survivors formed a human chain around the site of the deadly attack. The anniversary came and went as President Trump and the Republican-led Congress have enacted no major new gun control policies. In March, the Justice Department proposed a rule change that would ban the sale of bump stocks like those used in the Las Vegas massacre—which turn semiautomatic rifles into fully automatic machine guns. But President Trump has yet to sign an executive order. On Monday, he declared that the bump stocks ban would take effect in “two or three weeks.”
President Donald Trump: “In order to eliminate—terminate—bump stocks, we have to go through a procedure. We are now at the final stages of that procedure. In fact, the lawyers were just telling me, and over the next couple of weeks I’ll be able to write it up. But you can’t just write it up, because rules and regulations in this country are really tough, even for something like that. So, we’re knocking out bump stocks. I’ve told the NRA. I’ve told the—bump stocks are gone.”