Aspects of Booker’s 14-part plan are among the most progressive gun-control measures suggested by a candidate seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and are likely to face sharp criticism from gun-rights advocates like the National Rifle Association.
“My plan to address gun violence is simple — we will make it harder for people who should not have a gun to get one,” Booker said in a statement. “I am sick and tired of hearing thoughts and prayers for the communities that have been shattered by gun violence.”
The most notable piece of Booker’s plan is the proposed gun licensing program, which would enact minimum standards for gun ownership nationwide. Under such a program, a person seeking to buy a gun would need to apply for a license in much the same way one applies for a passport.
Booker’s campaign said the process would involve submitting fingerprints and sitting for an interview, and would require applicants to complete a certified gun safety course. Each applicant would also undergo a federal background check before being issued a gun license, which would be valid for up to five years.
Other parts of the plan include banning bump stocks, which enable semi-automatic weapons to fire faster; limiting bulk purchases of firearms; and closing the loopholes that allow domestic abusers and people on terrorist watch lists to obtain guns. And the plan calls for the IRS to investigate the NRA’s tax-exempt status, an issue the New York attorney general is also exploring, causing considerable turmoil among the group’s leadership.
The NRA did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, said gun control advocates and politicians have long called for comprehensive background checks and an assault weapons ban. But he said research has shown that those policies, when implemented at the state level, have not been nearly as effective at reducing gun homicides and suicides as gun licensing programs for purchasers.
A 2018 study found that 63% of gun owners supported requiring a person to obtain a license from local law enforcement before buying a gun; support for gun licensing among people who do not own a gun was even higher.
“I’m glad to see Sen. Booker look at the actual data and show some political courage,” said Webster, who said he was among the gun policy experts consulted by Booker’s staff.
“We’ve got a crisis here. And if you’re just trying to say, ‘OK, what’s the easiest political thing to do?’ you’re likely to aim low and have minimal impact. So I salute Sen. Booker for saying we’ve got a huge problem, and you don’t solve huge problems with tiny changes.”
In a statement, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a gun-rights organization, described Booker’s plan as a way to turn a “Second Amendment right into a government-regulated privilege.”
“Booker’s brainstorm is nothing more than a combination of every pie-in-the-sky idea on the gun control wish list,” said Alan Gottlieb, the group’s chairman.
The renewed focus on gun violence comes just more than a week after a gunman opened fire inside a synagogue in Poway, California, with an AR 15-style weapon, and days after a man with a pistol walked into a classroom at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and killed two people.
Booker obliquely cited those shootings in announcing his plan Monday, calling gun violence in the United States an “epidemic.”
In the six-plus years since 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, some states have been busy enacting gun-control measures, including a handful of gun licensing laws like the one Booker is proposing.
Still, America’s gun laws remain among the least restrictive in the Western world, and several other Democratic presidential candidates have also addressed the issue.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California has pledged to deal with gun violence through executive action that would, among other things, close one of the loopholes targeted by Booker’s plan. Rep. Eric Swalwell of California has made gun control a central focus of his campaign. And both former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have lengthy records grappling with gun safety.
Biden has long supported stiffer gun laws, having introduced legislation as a Delaware senator that sought to ban assault weapons; he later led a gun-violence prevention task force as vice president. But critics have highlighted his support of a 1994 crime bill that many Democrats have condemned for contributing to mass incarceration, especially of people of color.
Sanders saw his record on gun control come under scrutiny when he faced off with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. He was criticized for, among other things, having supported a 2005 bill that gave gun manufacturers legal immunity, but he has since changed his position on that issue.
That bill, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, is a specific target of Booker’s plan. In his announcement Monday, Booker said that if elected president, he would repeal it.
“Sen. Booker’s plan is bold and thoughtful,” said Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, the gun violence prevention organization led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He added that it was a “positive sign” that presidential candidates were “coming to the table with serious policy proposals to make our country safer.”
Booker has focused a significant portion of his platform on a topic connected to gun control: criminal justice changes. He and Harris seek to compete with Biden for support from African Americans, who are disproportionately affected by gun violence and incarcerated at significantly higher rates than white Americans.
Booker has often cited his time as the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, when discussing his firsthand experience with those issues. In an interview that aired Sunday on CNN, he drew on that experience again, standing on a Newark street corner where he said a man who once lived with him had been fatally shot by a gunman wielding an assault rifle.
Speaking about gun violence, he said, “I am going to come at this like folks have never seen before.”
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy organization that seeks to end gun violence, said he had seen a “seismic shift” from past campaigns, when the issue of gun violence was considered the “third rail” of American politics.
“Today what we’re seeing is people coming out muscularly for gun safety,” Feinblatt said. “We’re early on in the 2020 cycle, and I think you’re going to see more and more of this.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.