Maryland Democrats running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat are using the Charleston massacre to campaign on the platform of new federal gun control laws.
Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) authored an opinion piece in The Baltimore Sun calling for a ban on assault weapons and prohibiting the sale of firearms to domestic abusers.
“We still have to close some gaps. Even in the face of strong laws in Maryland, if we don’t have that type of strength across the country, it makes it really difficult,” Edwards said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday.
Her Democratic primary opponent and fellow Rep. Chris Van Hollen has introduced a bill that would increase regulations on handgun licensing requirements and make it more difficult for people to buy firearms from private dealers and at gun shows.
Van Hollen is banking that this bill, as well as his record from 15 years ago in the state General Assembly where he successfully spearheaded a state trigger lock law, will resonate with gun control activists. So far it’s working. He’s received the support of Vincent DeMarco, the president of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence.
Without a two-decade-long voting record on gun control, Edwards has attempted to gain attention by attacking the NRA, claiming that they are invoking “fear and violence in our communities.”
“We have to take on the NRA with the force of a nation under siege and the passion of a people committed to ridding our country of a dangerous and deadly gun epidemic,” she wrote in her op-ed.
Regardless if either wins the Senate seat, it is highly unlikely that these gun control measures will pass through Congress. An amendment to reestablish a federal ban on certain assault weapons was defeated by a vote of 40-60 even when the Democrats controlled the Senate in 2013.
