(Replying to PARENT post)
(Replying to PARENT post)
The "Laboratories of Democracy" idea is unrealistic for firearms, and most issues. States don't control their borders. Though, it's against federal law to buy a handgun from an FFL out of state and a long gun can only be purchased out of state if said long gun is legal in a buyer's home state.
In general, do you think that gun crimes (e.g. possession of a firearm by a felon) are adequately prosecuted?
I'm not interested in talking about the US Constitution. We both already know each other's arguments. I'm not even interested in changing your opinion. I'm a lurker, but I've read your comments for years and respect you.
The logistics of your ideal scenario interest me. Canada gave up on registering long guns because it was infeasible.
Would you support a law requiring background checks for all purchase of firearms under the condition that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is made available for all citizens to use (not just FFLs), free of charge, using a driver's license number of the potential purchaser?
Do you think that the progression of low-cost CNC machines, such as the Ghost Gunner, is a hurdle for the gun control measures that you want implemented?
The serialized lower receiver is what is considered a firearm in America. Do you want to regulate all firearm components, such as barrels, handguards, etc?
(Replying to PARENT post)
It seems to me the mass shooting, and gun crime issue generally is the responsibility of the gun lobby to solve. If a constituency wants to have a certain set of rights, and those rights have negative consequences on the rest of the population, it's the responsibility of that constituency to come up with a workable way to regulate itself. If it abrogates that responsibility, it should be prepared to forfeit those rights.
So what is the US gun community's answer to shooting sprees and gun deaths in general? It's clearly a real problem, so what's the answer? I'm not interesting in hearing why this or that gun control legislation can't work or is unfair. It's up to you, it's your problem to fix. What's your solution?
(Replying to PARENT post)
The issue with this is that there are no border or customs checks between US states (with some rare, ad-hoc exceptions). The result of this is you get states like Indiana and Virginia selling weapons with relatively few restrictions that travel up an "iron pipeline" to cities with more restrictions like Chicago and New York.
The federal government is supposed to regulate interstate trade, but has decided that they won't regulate interstate transfer of guns _in this way_, so the most lax state law will de facto become the baseline for an entire region.
(Replying to PARENT post)
Within Constitutional limits (and without wading into a protracted argument about what those limits might be; Heller was 5-4!), devolving this question back out to the states, so states that overwhelmingly support restrictions regain some knobs to accomplish that (through licensure requirements). Letting the Laboratories of Democracy do their thing.
I don't see a fundamental reason why we'd want to take most semi-automatic rifles away from most owners, because while I don't actually believe most owners derive any practical benefits from them (I think overwhelmingly they're a hobby, not a tool), I also don't see what the point of reclaiming a firearm from someone who simply isn't going to abuse it would be.