The Brady Law Most needed is an expansion of this law so that dealers and others now buying firearms on the Internet and at gun shows are subjected to background checks. The law has barred 2.5 million risky applicants in the last 20 years from buying guns, but it does not apply to 40 percent of total gun sales. Despite the national anguish over the Newtown shooting, Congress failed to close this huge loophole. Lawmakers, particularly wavering Democrats, must be relentless in pushing for universal background checks, which are favored by 85 percent of the public, including 79 percent of Republicans.

Battlefield Guns and Ammunition A responsible Congress would restore the assault weapons ban and enact limits on gross ammunition clips that let shooters spray crowds of victims with up to 100-round bursts. High capacity magazines developed for warfare have been used in at least 45 mass shootings since 1984, killing 403 people and wounding 406, according to the Violence Policy Center, a public safety research group. There are periodic proposals to control or tax ammunition. But the gun lobby showed its clout this year when federal officials backed down from a plan to block the sale of an armor-piercing handgun bullet rated a clear danger to the police. “You spoke, we listened,” officials tweeted after gun zealots complained that their rights were abridged.

Mental Illness Services undoubtedly need to be improved for Americans with mental illnesses as a public health issue, but recalcitrant Republicans are invoking this to duck gun safety measures. They should be the first to embrace a practical law pioneered last year in California that allows concerned family members to alert a judge to issue a gun restraining order on a potentially violent individual.

Insurance and Smart Guns Anyone who opposes limits on gun ownership is obliged to come up with practical steps to keep the public safe. Why not require a gun owner to have liability insurance, as is required for owning a car? Where is the industry, so clever in marketing war weapons, when it comes to advancing safer “smart gun” technology?

Home Safety The home is an even riskier place than the venues attacked by mass shooters. Gun safety studies have found that a gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in a family homicide, suicide or accident than to be used in self-defense. More than 1.5 million children under the age of 18 live in homes with loaded, unsecured guns, leaving them 16 times more likely to be killed than in safer homes, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a research group. It is hard to imagine how any politician who kisses babies on the campaign trail can fail to demand mandates and penalties to keep guns unloaded and locked up at home.