Prosecutors Dan Satterberg and Mark Roe write in Crosscut:

Between now and November, you’ll be hearing a lot about Initiative 594. The important thing to remember is this: It will help keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, people with severe mental illness, domestic abusers and other dangerous people. It won’t be perfect, or solve everything, but it will certainly help prevent some tragedies from happening.

Initiative 594 improves the current law. It simply helps us enforce existing law by closing a loophole and making the law consistent: All gun sales in Washington State, including those by private sellers at gun shows, over the Internet and in parking lots, will go through the same easy background check. Private sales would go through licensed dealers and use the same process that has worked for years — a process that has kept more than 2 million dangerous people from getting firearms.

As county prosecutors in Washington State, we know firsthand the tragedies that can occur when criminals get their hands on firearms. In 2011, a man who bought a handgun in Washington State through a private seller — with no background check —  later stalked and murdered Jitka Vesel, who he had met online. In states with background checks on private sales, 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by their intimate partners.

Although there is no one solution to gun violence, we know that background checks reduce crime and save lives. In states requiring a background check for private handgun sales, 39 percent fewer law enforcement officers are shot to death with handguns and there are 17 percent fewer aggravated assaults involving a firearm. Gun trafficking out of those states dropped 64 percent.

Read the entire column here.