After all, a lot people here would call me a gun humper if they could.
1. Require universal background checks to see if a purchaser is a felon or a threat to others. The latest study finds that 22 percent of guns are obtained in the U.S. without a background check, and polls find that more than 90 percent of the public supports making these checks universal. Yet the federal government balks.
I'm OK with the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal that allows gifts to friends and family. They still wouldn't be permitted to gift a gun to a known felon or otherwise prohibited person.
2. Improve background checks by allowing the federal government adequate time to perform them. At the moment, if the authorities have not completed the check within three business days, the buyer can get the gun. More than 90 percent of checks are completed within minutes, but a small number require investigation. The shooter who killed nine people at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015 should not have been able to purchase a weapon because of a drug history, but the background check was not finished in three days — so he was able to buy it.
I would say improve NICS so that checks can come back within 3 days, but there needs to be a limit to government delays.
3. Pass “red flag laws” that allow a judge to order the temporary removal of a gun from people who are a threat to themselves or others. Connecticut enacted the first of these laws back in 1999, and Indiana, California, Washington, Oregon and Florida have passed similar laws since. The idea is that if friends hear someone threaten suicide or mumble about attacking a school, the authorities can remove a gun. A hearing is later held with due process protections.
I support these laws in principle, but they are tricky when you get into the details. As long as there is due process where the gun holder has a chance to defend his rights and evidence of more likely than not risk must be presented by the state.
4. Get guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. Nearly half of women murdered in America are killed by a present or past lover, yet the existing laws in this area are full of loopholes.
Yes, but again with reasonable due process. An easy way to handle this is to make all domestic violence felonious instead of misdemeanor
5. Require safe storage of guns, preferably in a safe or at least with a trigger lock. One study found that only a minority of gun owners in the U.S. keep all their guns secure. When guns aren’t stored safely, it is easier for children to find them and play with them, for teenagers to use them for suicides, or for burglars to steal them. Some 300,000 guns are stolen each year in the United States.
Trigger locks do nothing to prevent theft, but I do think safe storage laws of the kind you describe can be mandated in households with anyone under 21.
6. Make serial numbers harder to file off, and require microstamping, so that cartridges can be traced back to the gun that fired the bullets.
Filing serial numbers off of guns is a ridiculous TV-show issue. Some states tried to micro stamp cartridges and it didn't work.
7. Invest in “smart guns” that require a PIN, fingerprint or nearby bracelet to fire. It’s outrageous that someone who steals my iPhone is foiled by my PIN, but stolen guns can be immediately fired. Smart guns shouldn’t be obligatory, but they should be an option. The way forward is probably for a police force to experiment with smart guns, giving them credibility with the public.
The simple reason no one is making smart guns and is that there is no market for them. Obama signed an EO to have federal agencies incentivize their development and it went nowhere. No one wants to depend on a gun that depends on electronics. There is a lot of physics going in a gun when it fires and electronics will either slow down or break down. But sure, make some grants available and let people develop an unwanted product.
8. Support community anti-violence programs, like Cure Violence and Becoming a Man, that work with at-risk young people and show excellent success in reducing shootings. One study showed each dollar invested resulted in at least $5 in savings from reduced crime.
Sounds good.
9. Limit buyers in most cases to one or two gun purchases a month, to reduce gun trafficking.
Ok. This will do nothing to reduce trafficking, but have at it.
10. Invest in gun buybacks. Since 1994, Americans have acquired an additional 100 million guns. The average gun-owning household now has eight firearms, and as owners die there should be a big push to acquire these guns.
There is little to no data that gun buy backs reduce gun violence. They are the epitome of dog and pony shows for gun controllers. As long as they are not mandatory, y'all can buy whatever you want.
So I can go along with most of this, but if you want to see these ideas made into federal laws, you'll need to give something to so-called gun-humpers. I propose that there be no federal gun bans of single shot, revolver, pump-action, lever-action, semi-auto fireams >.50 caliber (except shotguns).
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