Reply #27: Registration of firearms does not appeal to me ...

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I feel that it would be expensive to implement and would do little to solve crimes. It would also fail as many gun owners would simply refuse to register their firearms. Firearm registration is a failure in Canada and if it doesn't work there, it will never work in the United States. One major drawback is that any attempt to require gun registration would lead to a backlash that would benefit Republicans and hurt Democrats. The NRA would probably double its membership overnight.

I believe that private sales of ALL firearms should be required to go through an NICS background check as long as the cost is reasonable and no further registration of the firearms involved is required beyond what currently exists for dealer sales. Of course the NRA opposes this idea but they also initially opposed the NICS background check that we have today. This idea may be impossible to accomplish in the current political environment but may be possible in the future. It would help stop many of the tragedies that occur when people are able to bypass the NICS background check by buying from a private citizen.

In my opinion, most of our federal gun control laws are reasonable but need better enforcement. The NICS background check needs to be better financed and improved in order to be more accurate and faster.