Editorial: Adopt assault weapons ban, license requirement

By The Herald Editorial Board

It took the outrage over the school shooting of 19 young students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, last year to shake Congress out of lack of action — a stupor that had lasted 29 years — on passage of firearm safety legislation.

Among its reforms were tougher background checks for gun buyers younger than 21; $15 billion in funding for mental health programs and school security upgrades; financial incentives to states to implement extreme-risk protection orders that confiscate guns from those who pose a threat to themselves or others; and closure of the “boyfriend loophole,” intended to block sales of firearms to those convicted of abusing unmarried intimate partners.

Washington, among other states, has gone further in recent years — including last year — adopting through the Legislature or by citizen initiative: bans on high-capacity magazines and ghost guns, as well as bump stocks that turn semi-automatic firearms into automatic weapons; universal background checks; extreme-risk protection orders; an age requirement of 21 for purchase of semi-automatic weapons; limits that bar the open-carry of firearms at demonstrations, ballot-counting centers and public meetings; and laws mandating safe storage of firearms in the home.

What has eluded supporters in past years has been a ban on “assault weapons.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-adopt-assault-weapons-ban-license-requirement/