By: Michael D. Shear – nytimes.com – February 20, 2018

The president asked the Justice Department to propose regulations that would ban “bump stocks,” which can convert a semiautomatic gun into an automatic weapon.

President Trump — under pressure from angry, grieving students from a Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 people last week — ordered the Justice Department on Tuesday to issue regulations banning so-called bump stocks, which convert semiautomatic guns into automatic weapons like those used last year in the massacre of concertgoers in Las Vegas.

A day earlier, Mr. Trump signaled that he was open to supporting legislation that would modestly improve the national gun background check system, and on Tuesday night, he posted on Twitter that Democrats and Republicans “must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!”

But Mr. Trump’s first embrace as president of any gun control measures was dismissed by gun control supporters as minor. The National Rifle Association supports the background check legislation and also backs bump stock regulation, although not an outright ban.

Speaking at the White House days after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Mr. Trump said that he had directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to develop the regulations.

“We cannot merely take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference,” Mr. Trump said at a ceremony as he conferred the medal of valor on public safety officials. “We must actually make a difference.”

In Florida on Tuesday, the Republican-controlled State House rejected an effort to immediately consider a bill to ban large-capacity magazines and the type of assault rifles used in last week’s attack, even as students from Stoneman Douglas High School watched from the gallery.

The party-line vote was on an unusual procedural motion offered by a Democrat, and Republican leaders were critical of the effort to force a vote. They said they would consider other gun control bills before the session ends in March, but none of those measures is expected to go as far as banning assault rifles.

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Source: Trump Moves to Regulate ‘Bump Stock’ Devices