Trump Says He’s ‘Seriously’ Looking at Banning Gun Silencers

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’ll "seriously look" at banning gun silencers after last week’s mass shooting in Virginia.

“Well, I’d like to think about it," Trump said in an interview with Piers Morgan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. “I’m going to seriously look at it."

While Trump said he didn’t "love" the idea of a ban, he also was unhappy to see the frequency and severity of mass shootings in the U.S.

Trump’s comments represent a potential crack in Republican opposition to stronger gun control measures.

They follow a shooting last week at a municipal center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in which a gunman killed 12 people. Police recovered a high-capacity magazine and a silencer mechanism from the scene.

Virginia’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, said Tuesday he will summon lawmakers back to the state Capitol to consider a package of gun-control legislation. Republicans control the state’s legislature. Northam’s proposals include a ban on silencers and high-capacity magazines.

The Trump administration earlier this year banned bump stocks, devices that let a semi-automatic weapon fire like a machine gun.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chelsea Mes in Sydney at cmes@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kasia Klimasinska at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net, Kathleen Hunter, Sara Marley

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