What CAN we do about reducing gun violence? What practical steps can be taken?

First, we can’t just “ban” guns. Not only are there already millions of them in circulation, but banning them will just turn them into a lucrative contraband item, like dope, or Prohibition booze. They’ll just be smuggled into the country, perhaps inside bales of marijuana. Besides, there are constitutional protections for gun ownership, as well as legitimate uses for firearms. We cannot ignore that. Simply banning them all will be politically, as well as practically, impossible. Then again, it isn’t necessary to make guns disappear overnight, the harder we make it to acquire them the more lives we save. The trick is to reduce the total number of guns, their lethality, and their access to potential criminals, children, disturbed or insane people, and suicide candidates. The argument that ALL guns must disappear so that all gun deaths will stop is bogus, whether made by a Liberal pansy or a skinhead militiaman. Less guns means less deaths. There will always be accidents, crazy people, suicide and crime. There are no absolute fixes here, we’re talking statistics..

Its not that hard, other countries have done it, there is no reason why we can’t. Here are some options. We need not try all of them at once. They can be introduced gradually, and they can be discarded or modified if they don’t work. We have a valid and reasonable right to own firearms, but there is nothing in the Constitution or in the Scalia Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment (which I totally disagree with, incidentally) that says those firearms can’t be regulated.

For starters, some guns should be banned outright. We don’t need weapons capable of full automatic fire, accessories that make them easily convertible to full auto, or easy internal modifications or kits that can be sold to make them full auto. We set up a buy-back program, like the Aussies did. If they had problems with it, we learn from their mistakes. After a reasonable amount of time to allow those who possess these items to dispose of them, ownership of such a weapon or kit becomes a felony. Get caught with one and you go to jail.

Second, high-capacity magazines should likewise be illegal. There is absolutely no need for 20 or 30 round (or higher, yes they are available) magazines except in military applications. Lower capacity magazines can be made by modifying or converting the high-capacity models, or can be sold by the industry as replacements. Mags are cheap. Pistols can also be designed or modified for lower capacity mags. There is no need for a hunting rifle to have more than a 5-round capacity, or a pistol a 10-round capacity. But exact limits can be negotiated and legislated. Remember, we won WWII with an 8-round semi-auto rifle, the M1 Garand, which General Patton called “The finest implement of war ever devised.” Those who insist on owning bootleg high-capacity mags can be fined or imprisoned, as appropriate.
No whining. It will save lives.

What’s to stop people from smuggling in or hoarding illegal weapons or accessories? Nothing, but only criminals will have a real incentive to do so. No law-abiding citizen is going to risk a stiff fine or going to prison because he wants an illegal weapon. Especially when they know that every time it leaves the house, or if it is found in their house, they are exposing themselves to arrest. The criminals may be willing to take that risk, but they get caught all the time with illegal firearms, and those arms are often confiscated and destroyed, or should be! Criminals rely on look-the-other-way laws, a patchwork of goofy interstate regs (or lack of them), smuggled weapons, or stolen ones. Without the commercial incentives, those sources will eventually dry up, or shrink down to a trickle.

Require every legal weapon to be registered. Every firearm’s serial number should be matched in a national database to its owner, and that owner is responsible for reporting its sale, loss, theft or destruction. I know the Sunshine Patriots out there will bristle at telling the gummint about their guns, but that is a bogus argument. Think about it, those same piss-ant Minutemen are the first to get Carry Permits which immediately identify them (but not the weapon) to the authorities. They aren’t worried about big brother or the black helicopters or the Deep State; they just want a system that allows only affluent old white guys to own guns and carry them around in public so they can shoot uppity third world types. You want a gun to defend your house, hunt game, or practice at the range? Fine. But that does not give you an automatic right to go into public places with it hidden under your clothing. Transporting a firearm anywhere except to an approved place where it can be fired should require that it be first dismantled. Once you get to the range you can reassemble, lock and load, but not before. People with a valid reason to carry (like bank messengers) can fill out the paperwork and pay the fee.

Yes, there should be a waiting period and a background check. That’s a no-brainer. And like all other gun laws, it should NOT be legislated “at the state level’. The USA has no internal borders, the same gun law must apply everywhere, equally, or it is a vulgar farce designed to market firearms to criminals and crazies.

Every new weapon sold must be test-fired and the bullet and shell casing be photographed and filed away cross-referenced to its serial number (and owner, manufacturer and distributor) for forensic purposes. If practical, this procedure should be carried out when old weapons change hands legally. We need a paper trail, just like we have for cars.

The NRA and other gun groups are in a perfect position to lobby legislators in crafting this legislation fairly. Yes, we CAN have our cake and eat it too, good gun control laws AND preserving the rights and property of law-abiding gun owners. But the NRA no longer represents the gun owner, it services the needs of the gun industry. They will fight any regulation that will result in the sale of less weaponry. They don’t care where the guns wind up, they just want to sell as many as they can. Like I said, they’re selling repeating rifles to the Sioux, and mouldy oats to the Cavalry.

There is no way we can save every single victim of gun violence or accident. Traffic laws don’t mean people never die in car wrecks, and remember, even Norway had a mass shooting. But just because we can’t save them all doesn’t mean we should do nothing at all. And the international example set by other countries that implement some or all of my suggestions have much lower levels of gun violence, just like we did not all that long ago.
I’m sure this list is not conclusive. You may think of other things, and I may have left some out. And perhaps I didn’t think all my ideas through completely and some may have to be tweaked. What do you think?

But those who reflexively deny there is a problem and who refuse to do anything whatsoever to try to stop it (except sell more guns) are the problem. And those kids who marched today now know exactly who those people are.