Gun law madness

For a few days after the Las Vegas sniper attack, it seemed as if Congress might actually move to ban the device known as the ‘‘bump stock,’’ which the gunman used to convert his semiautomatic rifles into, essentially, machine guns that could fire 90 shots in 10 seconds into a crowded music festival. That moment seems to have passed. So what gun policy measure are lawmakers discussing in Congress? An absurd yet dangerous proposal that would drastically undercut states’ abilities to set reasonable rules about who gets to carry a weapon.

The proposed federal law, the so-called Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, would require any state that issues permits for carrying concealed weapons to recognise concealed-carry permits issued by other states — even if those states have different eligibility and training requirements and less stringent restrictions on gun ownership.

The National Rifle Association has made passing the reciprocity bill its legislative priority for this session. The rest of the nation should make it a priority to stop this madness. Proponents of the bill argue that a permit to carry a concealed weapon is similar to a driver’s licence and should be recognised nationwide. But that’s cooked-up logic. States observe similar traffic laws and training requirements before issuing driver licences. That’s not so with guns.