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However, nothing of what I'm about to propose would have in any way mitigated the type of shooting that happened is Tucson.
Idea one: Closing the private-sale gap in gun-transfer laws, also known popularly as the "gun show loophole". Currently, when a person buys a new gun, they have to by federal law buy it from a federally licenced gun dealer, an FFL. When a person in State X wants to buy a gun from a person in State Y, it also has to go through an FFL. However, a person can buy a gun from another person in the same state, there is no background check. It's a purely private intrastate sale, like selling somebody a TV set or a sofa.
I would like to see a system set up where any time you get a state-issued ID card (e.g, a driver's license), as part of the application process you fill out a abbreviated version of ATF Form 4477, the one for the background check. The clerk at the DMV would, as part of the licensing process, perform a NICS check on the person, a check on that person's ability to purchase a firearm.
One corner of an ID card would be marked as "OK to purchase". If the person applying for the ID passed the NICS check, that corner would remain on the card when it was issued. If the person failed the check, was not a US citizen, or refused to fill out the 4477 part of the application, the DMV clerk would pull out a pair of sharp scissors and snip off that corner.
If an ID holder at some point did something that causes his 2nd Amendment rights to be revoked, the police and the courts could simply snip off that corner whenever needed. On conviction for domestic abuse, for example, or the issuance of a restraining order.
Then, whenever a person (non-FFL) wanted to sell a gun, they would have to confirm that the buyer's ID was intact (no corner missing) before completing the transfer. No corner, no sale.
FFLs would still use the call-in system at the point of sale, though, to get the most recent information before the sale.
Item 2: Whenever a person (non-FFL) sells a gun to another person (non-FFL), the seller would have to make a copy of the buyer's photo ID, record the make, model, caliber, and serial number of the gun sold, and keep those things in his possession for a set period of time, say, 7 years. Or whatever.
This means that, with reasonable cause, the police could trace the path of ownership of a gun from owner to owner, but would prevent data-mining by the federal government.
Item 3: I don't have a problem with a purchase limit of 12 guns per calender year. I don't like the one-gun-a-month limit that some states have, but I also admit that if you're buying double-digits of guns a year you probably should have some kind of federal license for that much volume.
Of course, this only applies to guns that pass through the hands of FFLs, but that's a pretty sizeable number of guns.
None of these would have stopped the Tucson shooter... despite the personal opinions of associates, he was never convicted of a felony, or of misdemeanor domestic assault, or was involuntarily committed to a mental-health facility.
However, I think it would make trafficking and straw purchases harder and help keep guns out of the hands of some of the more unstable people. A couple of the guns used in the Columbine massacre were acquired through straw purchasers, for example.
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