Calif. senators push shooting range ban

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are urging the National Shooting Sports Foundation to ban children from using fully automatic weapons at shooting ranges.

The two senators sent a letter to the foundation president, Steve Sanetti, after a shooting range instructor in Arizona was killed last week while teaching a 9-year-old girl how to use an Uzi submachine gun.

{mosads}“Many owners and operators of shooting ranges share our view that not only was this tragedy avoidable, but that children should not be permitted to shoot a fully automatic weapon,” the senators wrote in the letter sent Thursday.

The lawmakers pointed out that some states, such as Connecticut, already have laws preventing children under age 16 from operating automatic weapons at shooting ranges. They said the foundation and its members should lobby Congress to pass similar legislation and that shooting ranges could implement their own bans in the meantime.

“We are writing to ask that your organization take the lead in promoting policies at shooting ranges that will protect our children and your members’ employees,” the letter stated. “We hope that you will lead an initiative to stop these tragedies in the future.”

Senate Democrats to pass gun control reforms after the Newtown, Conn., shooting where 20 first graders were shot and killed, but the legislation to require background checks on all gun sales failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance.