OLYMPIA — Buying a semi-automatic assault weapon in Washington won’t require a special state license or a more extensive background check, although residents might be advised, but not required, to store their guns safely in their homes.

Despite calls from state officials and gun-control advocates for major changes in Washington’s gun laws as recently as two weeks ago, a key House committee on Thursday recommended incremental changes.

Proposals to ban certain semi-automatic rifles, sometimes called military assault weapons, never got a hearing, but a bill to require licenses for people who own, buy or sell them was near the top of the House Judiciary Committee calendar Thursday. But it didn’t get a vote and is likely dead for the year.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, had prepared an amendment that would strip out all references to licenses for the guns or large capacity magazines, leaving only the requirements that anyone buying such a weapon go through the same background checks required for a handgun.

But Jinkins, the committee’s chairwoman, pulled the bill from the schedule. Later, she explained she had agreed to move the bill only if it had the support of the National Rifle Association. On Wednesday night she received an email indicating the powerful gun-rights lobby would oppose even the stripped-down version, she said.

Without NRA support, the bill was unlikely to pass the full House, where Democrats have only a two-vote majority and several are strong supporters of gun rights. It didn’t get a vote at the committee’s last meeting before a key deadline Friday.

“The safe storage bill was the priority,” Jinkins said.

That bill did pass, although it, too, was changed to be less sweeping that the original version. It no longer calls for criminal charges for a person whose unsecured firearms are stolen in a burglary and later used in a crime. Under a “middle ground” amendment approved by the committee, a person who leaves an unsecured firearm accessible to a child could be charged with reckless endangerment if that the child takes the gun and hurts or kills someone.

“There’s no requirements for a safe or a trigger lock,” said Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland. “If a child gets ahold of it…there have to be consequences.”

Rep. Jay Rodne, R-Snoqualmie, said leaving a gun unsecured is not, by itself, a crime and the proposal could result in the state could be bringing charges against a grieving parent after a tragic gun accident.

The committee approved several other gun bills, including one that requires dealers to report to the Washington State Patrol the name of people who fail a background check when they try to buy a weapon. If that would-be buyer is the subject of a domestic violence protection order, the person protected by the order also would be notified of the attempted purchase.

Other bills expand the exemptions from background checks for transfers or gifts of firearms among certain relatives and allows voluntary temporary transfers of weapons from people who are suicidal.