“After the fatal shooting of eight police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La., this month, lawmakers across the country want to increase the penalties for attacking law enforcement and other first responders.
“In May, Gov. John Bel Edwards signed a law that made Louisiana the first and only state to label certain acts of violence against police a hate crime. So-called Blue Lives Matter bills — a riff on the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality and racism — have been proposed in at least nine other states and Congress in the past year.”