My ideas for sensible gun control

[Union Scribe]

I've read many of my fellow DUers' posts proposing solutions. I've considered them, and thought about it, and I have a list of measures I think would make a difference and that can keep society safer while not stigmatizing responsible gun ownership. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. End private sales. This is the "gun show loophole." All firearms sales must go through federally licensed dealers, and those FFLs' books need to be monitored better to avoid abuse. This isn't an unfair burden on anyone, as FFLs are everywhere and they charge only a little to process sales.

2. Require secure storage. A receipt or other proof of a locking storage space must be presented to take possession of a firearm. If a firearm is stolen and used in a crime, an owner would be subject to criminal charges if shown to not have stored the firearm properly. (There are plenty of inexpensive ways to lock up a gun that can still allow for access in case of break-in or whatever.)

3. States MUST do a better job at reporting disqualified individuals to the national database that sellers use to determine a firearm buyer's eligibility. After Virginia Tech we found out that a lot of states were majorly slacking in this area.

4. Insurance. Firearm owners should have insurance to cover any damage resulting from the firearm. Like I told another poster recently, I don't think this will stop murderers necessarily, but I agree it might help bolster the sense of responsibility.

5. "Accidents". True accidents are fairly rare with guns, you generally have to pull the trigger to make it go off. So when Uncle Cletus blows a toe off showing off his pistol, that's not an accident, it's a crime and the penalty should include a forfeiture of their guns for a period of time (or permanently, at the discretion of a judge depending on the severity of the incident) and they'd also have to go through another licensing course.

6. Licensing. People would take a standardized course that both educates about safety and imbues the heavy responsibility of being a gun owner. After passing this and demonstrating competency they get a license to purchase.

7. Magazines. Semi-auto pistols should be limited to their natural capacity (no extended mags) and semi-auto rifles should be limited to five rounds for civilians. That doesn't take away from fun at the range or from hunting, but it would dramatically reduce their usefulness in mass shootings. This will be harder and arguably less effective than other measures because there are already millions of magazines out there.

I think they're fair to everyone.

[Azathoth]

1. Kick for a well thought out post n/t

[Union Scribe]

17. Thanks Azathoth nt

[dionysus]

2. those are all good ideas, but someone could follow all of those rules right up until the moment they

commit a crime.

[Union Scribe]

18. This is true.

And I have no answer for that. I just hope to weed out as many as possible with eligibility and competency requirements.

[dionysus]

23. i think thats the problem in all of this that no one can solve.

if he didnt have access to any of those weapons he still could have bought a shotgun at walmart and caused horrible amounts of death

[Logical]

3. I honestly do not have much issue with your list. My only question is if this would have....

stopped this weeks shooting. Or any future shootings.

The secure gun law is a must to me. And should be severe punishment parents who do not secure guns from small children.

[Politicalboi]

7. Possibly if she couldn't pass

A mental or safety test, or if the guns were locked so the kid couldn't get them.

[Logical]

11. Yes, hard to say if a 20 year old would not have had access to the guns anyway. Most adults....

in the house would know how to use the gun safe for self defense anyway. Or to go hunting or target shooting.

[Union Scribe]

16. I don't think any one thing can make a difference

but a combination of education, technology, and liability can help. I think I read, and I could be wrong, that the VA Tech shooter shouldn't have passed his background check, which is why I included that one.

[Logical]

29. Good idea! Honestly a good starting point!

[Politicalboi]

4. Very good

We need yearly registration fees too. Bring in your unloaded weapon to be re-registered EVERY year like a car. Those that fail to do so will lose their license, just like a car.

[Union Scribe]

10. Good idea.

That will definitely help keep track of the guns. It seems to me the guns used in many crimes bounce from hand to hand for some time before the crime, and re-registering could help make sure the gun stays with the person authorized to buy it.

[SpartanDem]

21. You only need resister your car if plan on driving it

it's perfectly legal to keep a car on your property and not register it. I don't think you want that for guns, one registration is sufficient, yearly registration is just needless inconvenient. The only time you really need to re-register is following a sale.

[JimDandy]

35. MOST cars are registered yearly, though, and I DO want that for guns.

At the very least, gun owners should be required to submit a change of address every time they move, just like required for a driver's license.

[Lizzie Poppet]

5. Those are good, well-considered ideas.

In particular, I'm a huge advocate on the second suggestion. Proper firearms security is a inseparable component of owning one, IMO. People who fail to take proper measures to secure their guns should be held criminally liable if that weapon falls into the hands of a criminal, particularly if harm is done with that weapon.

I also would like to see the NICS system work more efficiently, with better reporting from the states...and the inclusion of other mental health data besides adjudications and involuntary commitments (obviously just for a "yes/no" decision...no actual details). That would require altering laws regarding the confidentiality of medical records, but so be it.

I'm not keen on a magazine capacity limit. I just don't think it would do much good...as you point out, there are millions and millions of large mags already out there, and with a bit of practice, you can change them out in about one second flat.

All in all, a good and useful post. My compliments.

[Union Scribe]

13. Thanks Lizzie

I did struggle with the magazine idea; or rather am still struggling with it. I think a combination of the other measures would do much more good, like the security we both believe in.

[meow2u3]

6. Someone needs to invent a trigger lock with a breathalyzer built in

and make it mandatory to have one of them once the technology is mastered and the product made available to the public.

That would be ideal to prevent drinking and using a loaded weapon.

[Politicalboi]

9. But this guy wasn't drunk

Maybe a device with voice recognition with a secret command word to activate, or a fingerprint reader, or a pin code.

[backscatter712]

12. True, but am I the only one who thinks that drinking and packing should be as serious as DUI?

If you're packing while getting likkered up at a bar, you're incredibly stupid and irresponsible. IMHO, packing heat while you're intoxicated should be punished as seriously as a DUI/DWI. I'm talking jail time, loss of gun-carrying & gun-owning privileges, huge fines, supervised probation.

Seriously. If you're going to be drinking, lose the gun. I insist, and I would have it that the law insists.

[Union Scribe]

14. Agreed, it should be treated as severely

and as I'm okay with rather severe penalties for DUI it'd be a serious thing.

[Union Scribe]

15. I'm sure they could come up with something

that technologically would prevent a stolen gun from being used. I seem to recall at least a prototype of a ring that was worn on the gun hand and the gun would only fire if the ring was in proximity, and that was years ago.

[backscatter712]

20. Hmmm, some modern technology could be useful.

This could be a good use for implanted RFID/NFC devices.

You get an RFID tag in a simple procedure at the doctor's office, much like getting your dog or cat chipped. The gun's rigged with an electronic interlock with an RFID/NFC device, that you pair to your implanted RFID chip. The interlock only unlocks when it detects that the owner's RFID tag is present. And since the tag's implanted, it's awfully hard to lose it or to steal it.

Another idea: Mandatory gun cameras. As anyone with a laptop or a smartphone knows, digital camera technology is seriously miniaturizable. At minimum, we're talking about a camera chip (like the ones in smartphones or webcams, about the size of a pinhead), a lithium coin battery or similar power source, and some sort of interface, be it a microSD card (about the size of a fingernail), a micro-USB interface to download images to a PC, or a wi-fi chip. In any case, you can have a gun camera that's at most, the size of your pinky, and probably can be made much smaller. Require all firearms to have a built-in gun camera, that automatically snaps a picture and gives that picture a timestamp, and maybe even GPS coordinates, every time the gun fires. That should aid investigations immeasurably.

[Travis_0004]

24. How would the camera work?

First off, why would a criminal charge the camera? Also, if the gun is never recovered, then neither are the images.

[backscatter712]

27. Every crime is different.

A smart criminal would probably disable the camera, though there are a lot of dumb criminals...

As far as recovering the images, you could even go as far as equipping the camera with a 3G/4G cell-phone data interface and GPS, so the images, and the gun's location could be retrieved remotely.

[Travis_0004]

28. all of which requires a lot of battery power

So even if a criminal is dumb, its not tough to just let the battery die (or remove it). Or plan B, 1 second with spray paint to cover the lens.

[backscatter712]

30. Most firearms are equipped with safeties of some sort.

Be they safety switches, or mechanisms that prevent the gun from inadvertently firing (the Glock has three such mechanisms). Of course, there are still accidents, and still deliberate shootings, but that doesn't mean gun manufacturers write off safeties as useless and stop building them into guns.

There are lots of situations where an idiot is drunk and pulls a gun, or a conflict escalates and an asshole pulls a gun in the heat of passion, or some tweaker gets a hold of a gun and fires it while robbing a 7-11 without thinking things through, or any one of a million other conceivable incidents. RFID interlocks could prevent a few tragedies, and camera footage could become valuable evidence.

[SpartanDem]

8. I think is pretty reasonble

[Union Scribe]

19. Thanks SpartanDem, and Solidarity nt

[FunkyLeprechaun]

22. I actually posted something similar in response to the Virginia Tech Massacre

It was promptly moved to the gun forum where it sank like a stone.

[k2qb3]

25. Thoughts...

1. The primary reason we don't have this already is that people understand the ultimate goal of those writing gun control legislation is to ban the guns, so they don't want a national registry, or the ability to track the ownership of a firearm. Most people agree those things would be beneficial if they were never abused, but very few guns can be matched to owners in the US.

2. We already have this, all new firearms sell with locking devices today. People are charged with negligence today.

3. Agree, but people (and states) are going to disagree on who does or does not belong on that list. Most of these tragedies aren't perpetrated by people who've had their civil rights stripped for cause.

4. No opinion.

5. Negligent discharges are already prosecutable.

6. Many states have licensing requirements already, and gun safety courses used to be taught in American high schools, it would be a very good idea to standardize education on gun safety and the legal requirements and moral responsibilities of gun ownership and self-defense.

7. The capacity of a magazine has very little impact on effective rate of fire. Magazine changes are easy by design, the best selling semi-auto handgun design in America has a capacity of 7-8 rounds. If someone was really motivated I'm sure they could achieve a high sustained rate of fire in a mass shooting with antique cap and ball revolvers. If you limited handguns to "natural capacity" manufacturers would just make higher-capacity handguns. Limiting rifles to five rounds faces similar issues, it doesn't alter the situation very much. There are hundreds of millions of high capacity magazines in the US, creating legal jeopardy for using one will deter the law abiding, but not the nuts. Banning features doesn't really address the problem.

[russspeakeasy]

26. Well done Union Scribe.

[Sgent]

31. I absolutely support every idea

The only one I might quibble with would be the restriction on magazines -- but even then I'm not sure one way or another.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. I say maximum fire rate of six bullets an hour. No more than that.

Im thinking that should be plenty to kill a deer or stop a home invasion.

[SpartanDem]

33. One thing I would add is a ban on mods for semi-auto's

with things bump stocks youcan get a semi-auto fire almost as true automatic weapons. No civilian gun should be able to fire faster than you can pull the trigger

[demosincebirth]

34. Gun control, in this country, is an oxymoron

[NYC_SKP]

36. Recommended. nt