The bill would stop people convicted of violent misdemeanors from buying guns for five years after their convictions.
WASHINGTON — The man suspected of killing 10 people at a Boulder King Soopers in March bought his gun legally, despite a past violent conviction.
Thursday, Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Boulder, introduced a bill that would keep others with the same kind of criminal history from buying guns for five years.
The bill would stop people convicted of violent misdemeanors from buying guns for five years after their convictions.
The suspect in the Boulder shooting bought his gun three years after his conviction.
RELATED: Suspect in Boulder shooting passed background check before buying gun, shop owner says
Family members of some of the 10 people killed at King Soopers joined Neguse’s announcement Thursday, including Suzanne Fountain’s sister, Jen MacAskill.
“Last night I was talking to her son, Nathaniel, and he said to me, ‘Aunt Jen, she was my rock. Losing her has been life-shattering. She was brightness in a dark world,'” MacAskill said.
“We know we’ll never get Suzie back,” she said. “But we don’t want anyone else to go through what we as her family and friends are going through right now, and what the other families are going through right now.”
RELATED: Boulder City Council calls for state, national leaders to pass gun control legislation
The bill faces an uncertain future in the narrowly Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate.
Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, signed the same rules into state law this summer.
RELATED: Polis signs three gun bills introduced after the Boulder King Soopers mass shooting
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