"It's always too soon to talk about gun control"

[Black Aeronaut]

I wasn't making the argument that gun control would have fixed it.  If anything, it's just another data point that America has a problem with people wanting to be mass shooters.  Like, it's a meme now.  And even when the system works, it doesn't work.

All I want is for every firearm to be registered like Motor Vehicles.  If the police find an unregistered firearm on a person, it's a misdemeanor.  If it's registered to you and used in the commission of a crime, it's a felony, unless you can prove you took reasonable steps to keep it under control.  We don't even know where the guns we have are.  This is not a problem with motor vehicles, a similarly dangerous item.

I'm saying it's too easy to get guns in the USA.

Keep them locked up when they're not in use. Keep them secure in the stores. Don't sell them to anyone who's been ordered by a court to not have them (which means background checks at point of sale, I know). Keep track of them. And, for $DEITY's sake, keep them on your own side of the border.

And yes, fund better mental health.  Why settle for one partial solution, when we can have multiple overlapping approaches?

The USA needs better, and better funded, mental health programs regardless of the gun debate.

Well, I agree on all those points.  They do need every bit as much regulation as motor vehicles - even more so seeing as they're most emphatically weapons.

And ditto for the background check system.  That shit needs to be fixed so it is something that is agile and responsive.  I'd prefer an encrypted government database limited to the sole purview of the ATF since that's their field anyhow.  Though as a caveat to people worried about police abuse, I'd say make red-flagging someone in such a database something that requires a court order - much like an arrest warrant.  However, I'd also want to make it so any licensed medical health doctor can also red-flag someone.

For sales, I'd make it so anyone who is either a licensed seller of firearms or a registered firearm owner (for the purposes of private 1st party sales) can and will be required to perform a check on the buying customer, which would yield nothing more than a basic go-nogo result with no personal details attached beyond what's needed to verify identity.

Otherwise, a lot of the laws we already have on the books - particularly penalties for crimes committed with firearms - are pretty stiff already.  Here's a brief rundown of those penalties.  Keep in mind, these are the penalties at the FEDERAL level.  Individual states can impose their own penalties as well.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/fi...uncard.pdf

About the only one I'd change, really, is the one regarding firearms on school grounds.  I feel that ought to be ten years as opposed to five.  Also, pretty sure that all of these are felony offenses.

Current law already covers transporting firearms and ammunition over state lines - it's a flat-out no-no unless you're in the process of relocating, in which case you need to make sure you're in compliance with state law where you're relocating to.  Pretty sure crossing national borders counts - there, you'd not only be held liable under US law, but the law of the country you were crossing into as well.

The main problem isn't so much the law itself as much as catching the people that break the law.  And a lot of that is dependent on people actually reporting illegal activity.  It's only just now starting to catch on in people's minds that the best way to stop a shooting from happening is to actually SAY SOMETHING about it before it happens, and that idle threats this day and age are not likely as idle as they seem anymore.

The other half of the problem is law enforcement itself taking these reports seriously, but the recent backlash from events where LEOs had been informed and did nothing has been making examples of the consequences of these failures - not only in the form of the toll of human lives lost, but also the punitive measures taken in the conclusion of internal investigations.

It's going to be a long road, unfortunately, with Democrats having knee-jerk reactions and demanding blanket-bans and their Republican counterparts reacting just as badly any time sensible gun regulation is brought to the table.

Personally, if I were introducing such legislation, I'd trade-off by also relaxing certain bans, such as reopening the machine gun registry.  At one point in time, people could buy actual machine guns provided they were listed in a national registry.  That registry was closed during - surprise-surprise! - the Reagan Administration in 1986.  Machine guns made before that date can still be sold.  But don't worry - the actual process of background checks takes over a year (by the ATF), can only be facilitated by specially licensed dealers (by the ATF), has a $200 tax tag on each individual weapon, and the ban extends to the manufacture of new receiver assemblies and parts as well so no one can just cobble one together.

Details here: http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/02/actu...-guns-u-s/

I know, The Federalist is not exactly a shining star in the world of journalism, but this article is well written and very low-key. But as co-founder Sean Davis says in the conclusion of the article:

These are not my opinions. They are cold, hard facts about gun laws in the United States. We all want to stop the kinds of atrocities that happened in Las Vegas, but we can’t do that unless we know and accept all the facts about the situation. The sooner we can all agree to debate the facts, rather than be ruled by our emotions, the sooner we can work together for a solution to the problem of gun violence.