As more Americans call for stricter gun laws in the wake of last week's deadly school shooting in Florida, leaders at the state and federal level are considering a ban on bump stocks. Our Matt Hunter has more on the controversial devices.

MECHANICVILLE, N.Y. -- A local gun shop owner and show promoter, David Petronis has been in the business of selling firearms for more than three decades. He says one of the industry's hottest selling items right now is bump stocks.

"They used to sell retail for $150,” Petronis said from his Mechanicville store on Wednesday. “After the Las Vegas shooting, they went up to $400, $500, $700, $1,000."

The reason, he says, for the soaring prices is fear among gun owners that bump stocks will soon be outlawed.

"They are afraid they are going to be banned. They want it because they can’t have it," said Petronis, who says he has not had any bump stocks in stock for several months.

Illegal to attach to a weapon and fire, bump stocks remain legal to own and sell in New York. When hooked up to a semi-automatic rifle like an AR-15, Petronis says they make the gun fire more quickly like a true automatic weapon or machine gun.

"This is not a bump stock,” Petronis said while holding a standard AR-15 stock. “What a bump stock is, you hold your finger on the trigger, ‘bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,’ and it shoots like you would be normally using a semi-automatic gun."

While one was not used in last week's shooting in Florida, a bump stock was attached to the weapon used in last year's Las Vegas massacre. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he's open to considering a federal ban.

"We must do more to protect our children," Trump said.

"It must be tied to a whole host of other gun measures, including stronger background checks, including an outright ban on assault weapons," said Patricia Fahy, who represents the city of Albany in the New York State Assembly.

A Democrat, Fahy has already introduced a bill that would close the loophole in New York and make owning and selling bump stocks illegal.

"The fact we have a bipartisan measure here, I would still like to move ahead until we see if Congress will act,” Fahy said Wednesday. “Of course I want Congress to act."

"I don’t know whether I am for the bump stock or against it,” Petronis said.

A Second Amendment supporter, Petronis believes a ban on bump stocks would be ineffective because there are numerous other ways to alter guns and make them fire more rapidly.

"People will get around the mechanism of how a bump stock works,” he said. “Ban guns in general, it is never going to happen ... not here in our states, anyway."