BOSTON -- The Boston Globe has made an impassioned plea for a federal assault weapons ban with a special four-page opinion section wrapped around the daily newspaper.

The front of Thursday's section published just days after an attack at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub that left 49 people dead features a picture of a semi-automatic rifle, the outline of a bullet entry wound and the words "Make it Stop." The last page has an editorial headlined "Ban These Guns" and the much larger outline of a life-size exit wound caused by a bullet fired from such a weapon.

The editorial says "A sensible, mature society recognizes that extreme, destructive positions in the name of constitutional absolutism is just another form of fundamentalism" and criticized the National Rifle Association for its "blinkered fanaticism."