Sen. Feinstein says her daughter had planned to go to the Route 91 music festival: "That's how close it came to me." https://t.co/TLkjcwGmT1
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 4, 2017
At a press conference Wednesday in which Senator Dianne Feinstein announced she would be introducing a bill to ban the type of bump fire stocks that were used in the Las Vegas mass shooting Sunday, the senior senator from California revealed that her own daughter had plans to attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.
"When you see a country music festival when you see 18-year-olds in boots and hats... My own daughter was going to go. I have an email from her. She was going to go with neighbors, and for one reason or another both families decided they wouldn't. They were going to stay in that hotel. That's how close it came to me. I just thank god. It's one of those misses in life. It could happen to anyone of us."
As the New York Daily News reports, Feinstein announced a bill, similar to one she introduced following the Sandyhook shooting in 2013, that would ban, the bump stocks devices that use a semi-automatic weapon's natural recoil to turn it into a nearly automatic weapon. As Feinstein further explained in the conference, bump stocks cost about $200 and increase a weapon's output from about 40-60 rounds per minute, to between 400 and 800 rounds per minute.
"In just nine minutes, and individual was able to turn a concert venue into a battlefield," Feinstein said. "One person, nine minutes, utter devastation."
The bill also would ban trigger cranks and other similar devices, and Feinstein suggests that these devices are a loophole in existing laws that ban machine guns for civilians.
"Closing this loophole shouldn't be a partisan issue," Feinstein said.
Feinstein, a long advocate of gun control, saw her previous effort to ban the devices failed in a 60-40 Senate vote. The current bill as 26 co-sponsors so far, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who appeared with Feinstein at the press conference. The bump stocks were approved by the ATF in 2010 for reasons that are unclear.
ABC News has the text of the bill, which states,
It shall be unlawful for any person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a trigger crank, a bump-fire device or any part, combination of parts, component, device, attachment or accessory that is designed or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle but not convert the semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun.
Trying to shift the conversation to tax reform, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a predictable statement in response saying "I think it's particularly inappropriate to politicize an event like this."
Meanwhile we're learning this morning of another pair of victims in the mass shooting with Bay Area ties. As NBC Bay Area reports, a couple, Bo Taylor and girlfriend Denise Cohen, both grew up in the Bay Area and were now living in Oxnard. Taylor graduated from Fremont High in Sunnyvale, and Cohen, 57, graduated from California High School in San Ramon.
Related: At Least Three Bay Area Women Among Those Shot In Las Vegas, Two Fatally