Houston's police chief continues to call for tighter gun control. Chief Art Acevedo took to Twitter over the weekend saying "we've failed thousands of families" after the Las Vegas massacre.
The entire post read: “To those that say it is too soon, I say it's too late. We've failed thousands of families, of all ages, races, & faith. Stand up & be heard.”
He followed that up with a Monday news conference calling for universal background checks and closing loopholes allowing sales at gun shows and technology such as the 'bump stock' used by the Vegas shooter.
“The will of the people speaks to the majority, not to the minority at the extreme of a political spectrum who have hijacked gun policy in this country,” said Acevedo.
“Any device that would circumvent the will of the Congress and spirit of the law that turns a semi-automatic pistol into an automatic weapon has to be outlawed.”
Emily Taylor, attorney for Texas Law Shield, likened the chief's comments to the TSA's response following Al-Qaeda's “shoe bomber” in 2001.
“The knee-jerk reaction resulted in every single individual now has to take off their shoes and have them x-rayed,” says Taylor. “So it wrapped up everyone in this huge net for an issue that will probably never recur.”
Even House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, wounded by a gunman earlier this year, told NBC's "Meet the Press" he still believes in the right to bear arms.
“There are already limits on gun ownership, so let's go out and enforce those laws,” the Louisiana Republican said Sunday. “Don't try to put new laws in place, don't fix these problems, they only make it harder for law abiding citizens to own a gun.”
Scalise is also opposed to banning bump stocks which modify rifles into automatic weapons.
“I think it's dangerous for the concept that the federal government would have some kind of list of who has guns and what they have, because you've seen that in totalitarian countries,” he added.