Former Virginia lieutenant governor Don Beyer on Thursday announced three proposed changes in gun laws that he said he would support if he is elected on Nov. 4 to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.)

Beyer said gun control was the first of “Eight Ideas in the 8th” that he would highlight to voters in the 8th Congressional district before Election Day.

To a small crowd of supporters outside his field office in the Huntington area of southern Fairfax County, he called for tighter controls on gun ownership, citing the 30,000 deaths nationwide caused by guns, the majority of them suicides.

“Only one-tenth of one percent of the guns in America are used in crimes,” Beyer said. “So our focus has to be on that one-tenth of one percent.”

Beyer said he would bar gun ownership by those convicted of violent misdemeanors.

And while federal law already bans people convicted of domestic violence from owning guns, Beyer said he would expand the definition of domestic violence to include acts of violence committed on unmarried, intimate partners or former partners who are not currently living together.

He said he also would encourage states to pass laws making it easier for family members or law enforcement officials to petition for gun restraining orders on people they believe could be dangerous to themselves or others.

Beyer is not alone in his belief that gun laws need tightening; his Republican opponent, Micah Edmond, says the U.S. should ensure that “crazy people shouldn’t have guns” and emphasizes the need for rigorous background checks.

Beyer and Edmond are competing with three independent or libertarian candidates to represent the heavily Democratic Congressional district, where Moran has served 12 terms.

In the past, Beyer has said the federal government should close the “gun show loophole,” which allows people in certain circumstances to purchase guns without background checks. Beyer also favors banning high-capacity ammunition magazines.

The candidate said employment and immigration will be among the seven other ideas he plans to highlight in the remaining weeks of the campaign.

As for the rest?

“We haven’t decided yet,” he said.