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“No one is in a position to dictate to the Chinese people what should or should not be done,” Xi said...Instead, his remarks focused on the supremacy of the ruling Chinese Communist party. Hailing the party’s leadership and strategy up to now as “absolutely correct”,...Xi reiterated the party’s complete control over the country. “Whether it’s the party, the government, the army, ordinary people or students, the east, the west, the south, the north or the middle, the party leads everything,” he said.

The Trump administration is officially banning bump-fire stocks, senior Justice Department officials told CNN Tuesday. Under a new federal rule, those who possess the devices, commonly known as bump stocks, will get 90 days to turn them in from the date that the final rule is published in the federal register, which is likely Friday, the officials said. Bump stocks gained national attention last year after a gunman in Las Vegas rigged his weapons with the devices to fire on concertgoers, killing 58 people. President Donald Trump vowed to outlaw the devices soon after the tragedy, and some lawmakers on...

We were a tad premature with our recent post announcing the ATF’s final determination that bump fire stocks will now be considered and regulated the same way as machine guns. But we apparently weren’t off by much. According to the unimpeachable news source that is CNN . . . The Trump administration plans to announce the long-anticipated federal rule officially banning bump stocks in the coming days, according to US officials familiar with the matter.Given the President’s virtual order to the ATF directing the agency to reexamine their determination that bump fire stocks are perfectly legal firearm accessories under current...

Just an election season reminder this was said: “I think banning bump stocks makes a lot of sense. I don’t know that we should raise the age for buying an AR-15 I just don’t think we should be selling AR-15s in this country. “That weapon was designed for one purpose and one purpose only, to kill people as effectively and as efficiently as possible on the battlefield.” – Senate candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke in an interview with CBS News

Under New Jersey’s new bump-stock ban, which was approved in January, residents were supposed to destroy or turn in their bump stocks by mid-April. So far, New Jersey State Police say, they have not received a single one. Months after a man used a bump stock to quickly mow down 58 people in Las Vegas, seven states now prohibit the sale and possession of the devices, which enable semiautomatic rifles to fire at the rate of fully automatic fire. Bans of bump stocks in Hawaii and Connecticut are currently awaiting governors’ signatures, and lawmakers in Delaware and Rhode Island are...

In the post-Parkland hysteria, President Trump directed the Department of Justice to perform some regulatory legerdemain where bump fire stocks are concerned. The ATF had long ago passed on the stocks, deeming them perfectly legal accessories for semi-automatic rifles. Now, in a Saturday morning move apparently meant to fly under the radar . . . The U.S. Department of Justice formally submitted a regulation on Saturday to ban “bump stocks,” a modification to high-capacity rifles that lets them fire like an automatic weapon. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum in February directing the department to make the regulatory change, which...

Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat who was among the first to call for a ban on the devices last year, signed legislation Tuesday to outlaw bump stocks in Washington. Inslee applied ink to SB 5992, which makes it illegal to manufacture or sell a bump stock in the state after July and sets a one-year “buy back” program into effect before possession of such devices would become unlawful. The bill passed the Democrat-controlled Senate 31-18 and the House 56-41. “Devices that turn legal guns into weapons of war have no place in the hands of civilians in Washington state, and...

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that he believes bump fire stocks can be effectively banned through regulation, teasing that an announcement from the Justice Department would be coming soon. "We've had to deal with previous (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) legal opinions but our top people in the Department of Justice have believed for some time that we can, through the regulatory process, not allow the bump stock to convert a weapon from semi automatic to fully automatic," Sessions said at a gathering of state attorneys general in Washington. "We've been working on that for some time....

President Donald Trump pledged Monday that he will work to ensure that bump stocks become illegal, declaring that he’ll ban them himself if necessary. Addressing a meeting of state governors, Trump delivered remarks about guns in the wake of the Florida school shooting earlier this month, which claimed the lives of 17 people. “We have to have action. We don’t have any action,” Trump said, explaining that after mass shootings take place, people talk about how to prevent such tragedies, but meaningful reforms are rarely implemented. “It happens, a week goes by, ‘let’s keep talking,’ another week goes by, ‘let’s...

Bump stock prices have spiked following President Trump's directive on Tuesday that the Justice Department draft regulations to ban the devices. Bump stocks can be used to allow semi-automatic guns to fire at speeds similar to automatic guns. After Trump’s proposed ban, bump stock prices quickly rose on the firearms auction website Gun Broker, Bloomberg reported. Some bump stocks were being listed for anywhere from just above retail prices of less than $200 to as much as $1,000 with some listings having a tag that said "Get them while you can," according to Bloomberg. Trump’s decision on bump stocks...

New: Trump just said he signed a memo directing the Attorney General to propose a rule outlawing bump stocks, all devices "that turn legal weapons into machine guns." He expects those regulations to be finalized "very soon."

A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive, depriving investigators of a potential key source of information on why he killed and maimed so many people, ABC News has learned.

Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who leads the Congressional Second Amendment Caucus, and Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is one of the Senate's most persistent gun controllers, do not agree on much. But the congressman and the senator both see the folly of the National Rifle Association's position on bump stocks, the firearm accessories that Stephen Paddock used in his deadly October 1 attack on country music fans in Las Vegas. The NRA opposes a legislative ban on bump stocks but wants the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to reconsider the question of whether they are legal....

In the hypercharged partisan atmosphere that disgracefully follows any mass shooting tragedy, journalists, politicians, and anyone with an opinion spontaneously become firearms experts. Yet, as this U.S. Army combat infantry grunt can attest, these desk jockeys are no straight shooters. The Interstate 91 country music massacre is no exception. From talks of machine guns, bump stocks, “silencers” and the semantics of weapons transportation, these would-be sharpshooters are negligently off-target when it comes to the laws of modern warfare. Although reporters posing as weekend warriors insist that crazed gunman Stephen Paddock’s decision to use a bump stock made his shooting ambush...

It is time for civility to reign — and madness to be snuffed out. That is why I am for conditional access to military grade firearms. More complete background checks, for example, including medical records. Limits on stockpiling ammunition. Mandatory courses in safe usage. And more broadly, we need to have a dialogue about the place of guns in our society. I am not for banning guns. I do support the right to bear arms. But when a right becomes an acute threat to the general welfare it is time for re-evaluation.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in an interview broadcast Sunday that no law could have stopped the suspected shooter, Stephen Paddock, who was behind last week's mass shooting in Las Vegas. Feinstein spoke on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” about gun legislation in the wake of the attack launched from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel targeting a country music concert.....

Anti-Second Amendment crusader Senator Dianne Feinstein admitted on a Sunday spin show that no law could have stopped the maniac who massacred 58 people and injured almost 500 in Las Vegas last week. “No, he passed background checks registering for handguns and other weapons on multiple occasions,” Feinstein told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” But there is one law he definitely broke, which is the law against murder. Criminals don't follow the law. Nevertheless, she persisted. “Regulations aren’t going to do it,” Feinstein said on the need for a law over an ATF rule. “We need a law. It can’t be...

A legislative response to mass killings is elusive on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers cannot settle on a solution. However, there are lots of alternatives when it comes to potentially curbing gun violence. Background checks. Banning so-called “bump stocks.” Regulating bump stocks. Increasing open-carry provisions. Or just leaving things the way they are. But would any fix the problem? Taking action on any plan entails compromise. So far, the sides just aren’t willing to do that. And in a paradoxical twist, the butchery in Las Vegas last week may give Republicans the chance to pass controversial firearm legislation of their own, which...

On Wednesday morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced legislation banning bump fire stocks — accessories that transform semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. Already 20 Senate Democrats have co-sponsored the bill and even some wayward Republicans have promised to consider it. If successful, the bill could land on President Trump's desk, and it could become the first new gun control law in decades. And, more than likely, it could be obsolete. Bump fire stocks are made from relatively cheap polymers that can be 3-D printed. Hobbyists have posted videos of their homemade stocks in action, at least one manufacturer has actually...

There’s that scene in Star Wars Episode VI when the Rebel Alliance finds itself between the Death Star and the Imperial Fleet to which Admiral Ackbar shouts, “It’s a trap!” It’s a line used  heavily in pop culture—and that’s all I can say to the Republican Party as they consider joining Democrats to ban “bump stocks.”The device is used to increase the rate of fire of a semi-automatic weapon. It’s not the same as automatic—and no, it doesn’t convert a semiautomatic system into an automatic one. That falsehood surely made its rounds yesterday. At least some outlets were somewhat more...