Republicans Open to Banning ‘Bump Stocks’ Used in Massacre

Mr. Cornyn said the continuing legality of the conversion kits was “a legitimate question,” and told reporters he had asked Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman, to convene a hearing on that issue and any others that arise out of the Las Vegas investigation.

Other Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida, said they would be open to considering legislation on bump stocks.

“We certainly want to learn more details on what occurred in Las Vegas,” Mr. Rubio said, “and if there are vulnerabilities in federal law that we should be addressing to prevent such attacks in the future, we would always be open to that.”

In the House, Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida, said he was drafting bipartisan legislation banning the conversion kits. Representative Mark Meadows, the head of the conservative Freedom Caucus, also said he would be open to considering a bill, while Representative Bill Flores, Republican of Texas, called for an outright ban.

“I think they should be banned,” Mr. Flores told the newspaper The Hill. “There’s no reason for a typical gun owner to own anything that converts a semiautomatic to something that behaves like an automatic.”

In an often deadlocked Washington, none of the pronouncements guaranteed action. The National Rifle Association, which has poured tens of millions of dollars into Republican campaign coffers, remained mum on the bump stock discussion and could stop it cold.

And Erich Pratt, executive director of another gun rights group, Gun Owners of America, vowed to block any legislation.

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“We see this as an item that is certainly protected by the Second Amendment, and realistically, they are already on the market, so passing a law banning them isn’t going to stop bad guys like this creep in Las Vegas,” he said.

But Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat, tried to force the issue, introducing legislation, backed by about two dozen Democrats, that would ban bump stocks.

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Ms. Feinstein cautioned that bipartisan support for such narrow legislation would hardly constitute a sea change. She tried to ban bump stocks in 2013, but that was part of broader legislation to renew the assault weapons ban, which went nowhere.

“I mean, if not this, what?” she asked. “It doesn’t take a weapon away. It just means you can’t convert it into something it’s not meant to be.”

At a hastily convened news conference, Ms. Feinstein said the Las Vegas massacre, which left 58 people dead and about 500 injured at a country music festival Sunday night, had hit home with her. Her daughter had planned to attend the concert but decided against going at the last minute.

Ms. Feinstein, who has spent years shepherding gun safety legislation — almost always unsuccessfully — said she introduced the measure on the advice of Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, who reasoned that by offering a narrowly tailored provision, she might get Republican support.

Bump stocks replace a rifle’s standard stock, which is the part held against the shoulder, freeing the weapon to slide back and forth rapidly, harnessing the energy from the kickback that shooters feel when the weapon fires. The stock “bumps” back and forth between the shooter’s shoulder and trigger finger, causing the rifle to rapidly fire again and again, far faster than an unaided finger can pull a trigger.

In marketing the devices, two Texas companies, Bump Fire Systems and Slide Fire Solutions, were apparently concerned that they would not be legal. But in June 2010, after an inquiry from Slide Fire, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or A.T.F., sent a letter saying that the company’s bump stock product “is a firearm part and is not regulated as a firearm under the Gun Control Act or the National Firearms Act.”

The Las Vegas gunman fired down on concertgoers from the 32nd floor of a nearby hotel. With his fixed firing positions and distance from his victims, he almost certainly was more lethal because of the conversion kits. But until the shooting, many lawmakers said, they had never heard of bump stocks.

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The devices were introduced during the past decade by Bump Fire and Slide Fire, both based in Moran, Tex., near Abilene. Bump Fire’s website appeared to be down for much of Wednesday. The company wrote on its Facebook page on Tuesday that its servers had been overwhelmed by “high traffic volume.”

Multiple items on Slide Fire’s site on Wednesday featured the notice, “Due to extreme high demands, we are currently out of stock.”

Bump Fire sells stocks for an AK-47 and an AR-15 for $99.99 each. Slide Fire’s stocks are priced between $140 and $300. Neither company responded to a request for comment.

On Gunbroker.com, an auction site for firearms and shooting accessories, at least three dozen listings featuring bump stocks had attracted multiple bids.

Zack Cernok, a Pennsylvania gun owner, was one of those trying to buy a Bump Fire bump stock.

“I don’t even have the gun for it, but I want the stock just to have it down the line,” he said. “I just like the idea of them and want to see how it feels and if it’s worth it — for $100, it’s almost not a bad investment to buy it, try it out and sell it if I don’t like it.”

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Saudi King Seeks Oil-Pact Extension on ‘Epochal’ Russia Visit

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz is making an historic first visit to Russia by a monarch of the Gulf kingdom as he and President Vladimir Putin seek an understanding on whether to extend an agreement curbing oil supplies.

King Salman is due to meet with Putin on Thursday after he arrived for the four-day official visit late Wednesday. His journey to Moscow, ahead of planned talks with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington early next year, underscores a shift in strategic direction by Saudi Arabia as Russian influence in the Middle East expands following Putin’s military intervention in Syria.

“Is there really anything in the world that’s absolutely permanent?” Putin told an energy forum in Moscow on Wednesday, in response to a question about whether Saudi Arabia will always align with the U.S. in geopolitical issues. “It seems to me, on the contrary, that everything’s changing.”

The Saudi courtship of Russia reflects a convergence of interests between the world’s two largest oil exporters as the output pact between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC producers has spurred a recovery in crude prices. It’s also a recognition by Riyadh of the changing political balance in the Middle East after Putin successfully countered indecisive U.S. efforts to topple Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

‘Transcends Energy’

“We are sure that this truly epochal event in our relations will bring our cooperation to a totally new level,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Saudi-owned newspaper Sharq al-Awsat published on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia will secure Russian backing to extend the oil pact “but the Kremlin will insist that the deal include some form of tapering,” Eurasia Group analysts including Ayham Kamel, Middle East and North Africa practice head, said in an emailed note. The visit “will lay the foundation for strategic cooperation that transcends energy issues, though the Saudis have no intention of abandoning their deep partnership with the U.S.”

Putin said Wednesday that Russia may agree to extend the oil-supply agreement with OPEC to the end of 2018, though he’ll wait to make a decision until nearer the expiry of the existing pact in March. The arrangement that took effect in January benefits oil consumers as well as producers because it guarantees a “stable market,” he said.

“This visit shows the level of trust that we’ve reached recently,” Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told a Russia-Saudi investment forum in Moscow on Thursday. The oil-supply deal has achieved its goal by stabilizing the market, he said.