Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: When the price of individualism is just too high [View all]krispos42
(49,445 posts)It's down about 40% since Clinton took office.
"Assault weapon" is an arbitrary term that tried and fails to divide semi-automatic guns into "sporting" and "dangerous" categories. Either you need to simply ban semi-automatic long guns, or you need to give up on that aspect of gun laws.
And, yeah... we do let civilians purchase and own machine guns and bazookas. Rare and expensive, but legal.
There are far, far more firearm magazines in the country than guns that use them. Trying to regulate them would be vastly harder than trying to regulate guns.
And firearms are either sold by federally licensed dealer, or by private sellers. Geographic location doesn't matter; gun show or kitchen table, what matters is who is doing the selling. Dealers have to, by law, do a background check. Private sellers cannot, by law, do a background check.
States can mandate that all firearm sales go through a federal dealer, which might help things, but it has to be done a state-by-state level, as the federal government does not have jurisdiction.