General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Tomorrow's New York Daily News cover, posted without comment: [View all]krispos42
(49,445 posts)This is what confuses me, although I appreciate your politeness on the issue..
If your objective is to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, domestic abusers, foreign nationals, illegal drug users, and the dangerously mentally ill, then an AWB does not address this issue; a tight and universal mandatory background check does.
If your objective is to somehow reduce the firepower of the spree shooter, then this doesn't do it either, and it fact it would take draconian measures to make any kind of noticeable dent in the lethality of a mass shooting when a suicidal shooter has complete dominance over helpless, trapped victims for minutes at a time. Outlawing protruding pistol grips is not a solution.
If your objective is to lower the per-capita gun ownership rate, then this also does not affect that, as guns will still be bought as sold, including tactically-orientated guns.
There are a lot of things we can do to reduce all violence (and by extension, gun violence) that have nothing to do with gun regulation. Ending the War on Drugs, making our prison system public again, and there's a hole raft of economic stuff that would broadly empower the poor, working-glass, and lower-middle-class.
But putting aside the lecture on why USP health insurance is something we need to do, let's look at direct gun-control regulation that I think would work.
1) Mandatory universal background checks.
2) Withholding federal highway funds from states that don't have their NICS databases up to speed.
3) Create a type federal firearms license that would allow people to act as transfer agents with access to the NICS system. The transfer agent would not be a stocking dealer, but would run the background checks between two private individuals for a modest fee. It would be a kitchen-table side business for people. It would prevent straw purchases, as well as "hey, he looked honest to me!" sales.
4) Create limits on annual purchases and sales that a private citizen can perform per year. 12, perhaps, or maybe 10. Call it "X". The NICS would keep a count, and reject a transfer if more than X number of guns was bought or sold by a person. If you're buying or selling more than X guns a year, get a license. It would prevent significant gun-running or fencing, but not inconvenience anybody.
5) Have the NICS system keep track of the make, model, and serial number of all guns sold, the transfer agent who oversees the sale, and person who sells them. Not the buyer, but the seller. The buyer would keep the physical record in his possession but would stay outside of a central database. This affords police a quick way to track down the owner of a recovered crime gun (get a warrant, go to seller, get his record on who the gun was sold to) but prevents the police from trolling through a registry.
This seems to be a pretty ironclad system to me.