Another year is too long to go without meaningful gun reform
Ayear after the Oct. 1 shooting, bump stocks remain legal in Nevada. So do high-capacity magazines. So do assault-style weapons and tracer bullets. And all can still be purchased without a background check if the transaction doesn’t involve a licensed gun dealer but instead is between unlicensed individuals.
In other words, not much has changed in terms of gun policy in Nevada one year after the worst mass shooting in modern history. That’s shameful.
And a year from now, it must be a different story.
Nevada lawmakers didn’t address gun issues in the immediate aftermath of the shooting because there was no legislative session in 2018. But there is a session next year, and here’s notice to everyone who takes part in it: Nevadans will not tolerate any continued lack of action on gun safety.
There’s also an election in November, of course, that will go a long way toward determining how much progress the state is likely to make in passing reasonable, pragmatic measures to address gun violence.
The prospects for reforms start with the race for governor, where the choice couldn’t be more clear cut.
Democrat Steve Sisolak understands the need to improve gun safety. Republican Adam Laxalt is a National Rifle Association automaton who will block any movement forward, no matter how rational a measure might be.
Elect Sisolak, and progress is all but guaranteed. Democrats are strongly poised to maintain their majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, meaning good policies will be coming the governor’s way.
Sisolak has already tried to ban bump stocks as the Clark County Commission chairman, but was blocked from doing so by an outlandish law barring local governments from approving gun legislation more stringent than existing state statutes. That law passed in 2015, a rare year when the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature were controlled by Republicans.
So in an election where the stakes couldn’t be higher for a number of reasons, gun safety is near the top of the list.
This year, voters have a golden opportunity to boost gun safety by supporting Sisolak and like-minded legislators.
Nevadans have already seen what happens when Republicans are in control, and not just from the law that tied local officials’ hands.
Laxalt, as attorney general, campaigned against the 2016 ballot measure that established universal background checks on gun purchases in Nevada, including those between non-licensed individuals. Then, after the measure succeeded, he and Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval failed to take adequate action to implement the law.
So nearly two years after the vote, the will of the people has yet to be carried out. Instead, the issue is being addressed in a lawsuit headed to appellate court after the plaintiffs, who are demanding that state officials meet their responsibility in implementing the law, received an unfavorable ruling from a Clark County district judge.
At issue is a requirement for the federal government to perform the expanded checks, a responsibility the FBI said it wouldn’t take on. Once the feds threw up a stop sign, Laxalt and Sandoval essentially washed their hands and walked away. No surprise there, given Laxalt’s NRA ties and the fact that Sandoval had vetoed a similar measure that was passed by the Legislature.
You can bet that if Democrats had been in charge, they would have put up a lot more of a fight to get the new checks up and running.
As the community remembers the Oct. 1 shooting, one of many painful aspects of the anniversary is that Nevada has done nothing to limit the amount of deadly force that was openly available to the shooter that night. Nor has the state taken steps to keep weapons out of the hands of individuals who shouldn’t have them.
Let’s change that, voters. Let’s honor the memories of the victims of our community’s most horrific tragedy by making Nevada a safer place.