WASHINGTON — Want to drive a car? You need to learn how to handle the vehicle and then pass a test to get a license.

Want to buy a gun? U.S. Sen. Cory Booker says you also should pass a test and get a license.

Booker, who has made gun control a frequent subject of discussion as he seeks the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, proposed Monday that anyone who wants to buy a gun pass a safety course, undergo a background check and obtain a license to own a weapon.

“I am sick and tired of hearing thoughts and prayers for the communities that have been shattered by gun violence," said Booker, D-N.J. "It is time for bold action.”

He released his proposals a day after he said on CNN’s State of the Union that he would “bring a fight to the NRA that they have never seen before,” referring to the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun rights lobby that spent more than any other interest group in 2016 to elect Donald Trump and keep Republicans in control of Congress.

Booker’s other proposals include several measures he and other congressional Democrats have already endorsed.

They include requiring background checks for all gun purchases, including from private sellers and online; banning assault-style weapons, bump stocks, high-capacity magazines and the sale of more than one handgun a month; and preventing all current or former domestic partners convicted of abuse or under restraining orders from buying guns, whether or not they were married.

He also called for repealing the protection from lawsuits given to gun dealers and manufacturers. That measure was supported by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who was forced to defend his vote during his 2016 presidential run.

Booker said he wanted to regulate guns like other consumer products, find ways to improve gun safety, strengthen and increase funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and help communities hurt by gun violence, including setting up intervention programs.

Trump and congressional Republicans have attacked all efforts at restricting gun ownership as violations of the Second Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, in its landmark decision recognizing an individual right to bear arms also said that some regulations were constitutional.

“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” the court said. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

As mayor of Newark, Booker led gun buyback programs, and as a U.S. senator participated in a filibuster in 2016 to force the Senate Republican majority to allow votes to expand background checks and prevent individuals on the terrorist watch list from buying guns. The bills reached the floor but GOP senators blocked debate.

On the CNN program Sunday, he stood on a Newark street near where a former neighbor at the now-demolished Brick Towers housing complex, Shahad Smith, was one of three people killed in the city within 24 hours in March 2018.

“You’re standing in a community that has been plagued by gun violence," Booker said on CNN. “And you live in a community where fireworks go off on the Fourth of July, kids evidence behavior of somebody with post-traumatic stress. They hide. They think it’s gunshots — where you see in your neighborhood shrines to children, to teenagers that were on the sidewalk, teddy bears and candles.”

Democrats have been more willing to challenge gun rights groups following the 2018 elections when gun control organizations outspent the NRA and its allies.

Many new House Democrats campaigned for stronger gun restrictions in the wake of several mass shootings, especially after 17 students and staff members were gunned down at a Parkland, Florida, high school last year, and the Democratic-controlled House in February passed the first gun control measure in 25 years.

Booker in March got into a much-publicized tiff with the NRA. He said Monday that he would ask the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the NRA’s tax exemption, saying some of the group’s reported activities could violate its status.

1) Almost 70% of NRA members support background checks.

2) Massive gaps nullify those laws: https://t.co/QkAeGICbmo

3) Why does the NRA only want to support 2A rights when convenient?



This kind of response only further proves my point—the NRA needs to go. pic.twitter.com/k2HVqfugoQ — Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) March 28, 2019

According to the Politifact fact-checking site, 72 percent of NRA members surveyed by a Democratic polling firm supported expanded background checks.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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