Congress should follow Massachusetts model

You don’t need to be a parent to recognize this week’s horror in Parkland. You don’t need to attend a nightclub, church or theater to recognize the horrors in Orlando, Charleston and Aurora. And you don’t need to live in a big city where handguns kill more people each year than all other weapons combined to recognize the horror of losing a loved one to gun violence.

More than two-thirds of the nation’s school districts have an active shooter plan. Why? Because they saw a greater chance of an armed gunman stalking their hallways than a sensible gun control bill passing in Congress.

How many times will the nation’s flags be lowered because a madman had access to weapons of war? How many times will lawmakers tweet “thoughts and prayers” for the dead because they won’t take action for the living?

The time to act is now — and Massachusetts provides a model that Congress would do well to follow. The most effective step would be adopting our common sense measures to keep weapons out of the wrong hands.

Most Americans, including most gun owners, support background checks. Massachusetts law requires them, and it prohibits military-style assault weapons. It restricts the high-capacity magazines. And it provides local police chiefs authority to deny a firearm identification card.

Common-sense federal legislation could help prevent a mass shooting a week or a month from now — and save the next parent, spouse or child from losing a loved one to the gun violence that plagues American cities every day.