By Dave Workman | Editor-in-Chief
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that so-called “progressive groups” want Silver State lawmakers to ban so-called “assault weapons” and require gun owner licensing in a report prepared by representatives from two liberal organizations as the legislature prepares to convene Feb. 1.
The report was bylined by Chelsea Parsons, vice president of the Center for American Progress, and Annette Magnus, executive director of the Institute for a Progressive Nevada.
Anti-gunners want Nevada legislators to repeal the “essential business” status of gun stores, prohibit people convicted of hate crimes from owning firearms, ban so-called “ghost guns,” implement gun licensing, weaken—if not outright trash—the state’s firearms preemption statute, and ban “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.”
In an email fundraising appeal, Duncan Rand Mackie, vice president of the Nevada Firearms Coalition PAC, is asking for contributions to support what is shaping up as a fierce battle.
The report says Nevada accounted for more than 128,000 background checks initiate through the FBI’s National Instant Check System (NICS) during the six months from March through September last year. The story also predicted immediate opposition from Republicans and gun rights organizations of Democrats in charge of the Legislature try to enact the gun control agenda.
Las Vegas was the scene of one of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival. Sixty people were killed and hundreds more were injured when a madman opened fire from a hotel window.
“Loosening the preemption law is particularly important in a state such as Nevada,” the report asserted, “where the Legislature only meets every other year. Nevadans had to wait more than a year after the shooting at the Route 91 festival for the state to take action to ban bump stocks, while Clark County could have acted much more quickly had it not been restricted by the state’s current preemption law. The Nevada Legislature should amend the state’s preemption law to give more freedom to local lawmakers to act to address gun violence issues of pressing local concern.”
The report is not binding, but it does provide a road map showing where the gun prohibition lobby wants to take Nevada in terms of firearms regulation.
