There’s a whole lot of gun laws and regulations that fall on the states, the courts, and the ATF, so even with the president and Congress on the same page, a lot of stuff can’t really get done easily, so I’m going to assume that the question is more “you can wave a magic wand and set the gun laws however you want them”
We’re pretty much going back to square one with basic definitions about what even is a firearm. No more “muzzle loaders aren’t firearms,” type bullshit. If there’s combustion propelling a projectile it’s a firearm. Depending on how technology advances, we also need to consider how we’re going to regulate things like rail/coil guns should those ever become widespread, and it may be worth lumping certain types of air gun into the category as well.
No private sales or transfers. Everything gets the full background check, no excuses. We’re also making those transfers free, available in more places (instead of going to a gun shop you can do them at a police station, with a notary, the DMV, post offices, etc.)
We’re tightening up that background check, getting all states on the same page about what sort of offenses disqualify someone from owning a firearm, how those offenses are reported, etc. officers, clerks, judges, whatever who drop the ball on making sure those offenses are reported correctly face big-time criminal liability if someone uses a gun in a crime that they purchased legally but shouldn’t.
More uniformity between different state laws, we need all of our systems working together seamlessly, a firearm that would make someone a felon in one state shouldn’t be legal to walk around with the next state over. We need to expand a whole lot of circumstances that would prevent someone from owning a gun (I work in 911 dispatch, we have some regulars in my area that police are at their home every week or even every night that we have caution notes attached to their addresses that someone there owns a gun or multiple guns despite the fact that they’re constantly getting into fights with their family, neighbors, seem to be constantly drunk out of their minds or are suffering from significant mental health problems. We need some way of separating those kinds people from their guns.)
We’re overhauling healthcare, and including mental healthcare along with regular physical healthcare. It’s going to be totally funded by the government, no out of pocket costs. It’s going to become as normal to go in to see a shrink once a year or so for a mental health check-up whether you’re having problems or not as it is to go in for your annual physical. You need a clean psych screen within the last year before any gun purchase, transfer, ammo purchase, or to renew a carry permit (which under point 4, enjoys complete reciprocity among all US states and territories) and under certain circumstances your doctor can advise the police that you’re a danger and they should remove any weapons you own.
Training, again free. No purchases or incoming transfers without a gun safety course. No carry permits without a more advanced course that also covers a whole lot legal, liability , moral, and ethical issues and a stringent marksmanship test.
You can get rimfire weapons, or manually-operated center-fire rifles and shotguns at 18. 21 for semi auto. We’re keeping the general NFA framework for machine guns intact but we’re raising the cost of the tax stamp drastically, legal NFA items are used in a vanishingly small percentage of crime, they’re not a major public safety issue, they’re more of a luxury good and a collectors item, so people can pay a big premium if they want one. We’re also moving all of the non-machine gun NFA items into the regular 21+ category, there’s too much hazy bullshit about short barreled rifles/shotguns and handguns that are functionally exactly the same but legally different because reasons. They’re all the same thing now. Silencers/suppressors are already pretty damn available under the NFA in most states to anyone who wants them and doesn’t mind jumping through a couple hoops, and again don’t get used in many crimes, and there’s some good arguments to be made for them being used to help protect hearing for recreational shooting. Things like binary triggers and bump stocks are getting regulated as machine gun parts, along with obvious examples like auto sears and lightning links because that’s what they’re trying to do while skirting the law.
Regarding “ghost guns” we’re going to call 80% receivers/frame guns now, they need to be serialized and those making and selling them needgo through all of the other hoops a regular gun manufacturer would need to go through. If you want to mill your own gun from a block of metal, or 3d print one, or cobble one together from plumbing parts, you also need to serialize it and submit records that that gun now exists. We can’t really do anything to enforce that at the point of manufacture, but if it turns up used in a crime we want to have some hope of tracing it and holding people responsible who allowed it to end up there. Really all gun parts except for basic screws, pins, etc. should be serialized and recorded the same way.
Storage- locks are mandatory when the gun is not under your direct supervision, and at home you must have a proper gun safe to store them. No leaving firearms in your vehicle regardless of how well you’ve hidden it, or what kind of safe you’ve bolted into your center console or glove box. Again, we can’t really enforce that until that gun ends up stolen or some kid gets ahold of it and shoots themselves or their friend, but it gives us an avenue to hold people responsible when that does happen. If you don’t store it properly and something happens, you’re facing jail time.
We’re doing some major lobbying reforms so that gun manufacturers and organizations like the NRA can’t basically just buy politicians anymore. Really, the NRA probably needs to be disbanded after the maria butina thing.
Cops have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else when they’re not on duty. No carrying around your duty weapon if you’re not on the clock. No exceptions that they can carry a firearm without a regular carry permit, no “no firearms allowed except for LEOs” type policies. If they’re not working, they’re not a cop.
People not knowing how to store and handle firearms are a huge liability.
Not training as in “how to put 5 center mass in 5 seconds”.
But training about how kids get hold of guns, correct storage, correct safeties, correct loading, correct holding.
Even things like how to defuse situations, how to identify actual threats, stuff like that.
I remember when i was a kid, i went to a police precinct and got to play on their training simulator. I completely missed the fact there was a gun on the floor and died to someone i didnt see, instead of the obviously hostile person i was “talking” to.
Training like that, except maybe less “police” oriented.
My goal isn’t to make it difficult for people to own guns in general, just to make sure that the people who do are safe and that they have no excuses not to be safe.
If someone, for whatever reason, really feels that they need a gun, they will get their hands on one regardless of legality.
If we put a bunch of barriers in the way of them getting one legally, they will choose to go the illegal route. If we make the process of getting a gun too burdensome or expensive, they will circumvent it, and then we have a person with a gun who probably won’t have the necessary training to be safe with it.
There’s also class issues, if we make it too expensive to own a gun, then only rich people will own guns. I don’t think the state of your bank account is in any way indicative of your ability to be a safe gun owner.
And if you’re a person who believes in an individual right to keep and bear arms, you’re probably not too keen on the government trying to lock that right behind a paywall. Personally, while I don’t necessarily think that it should be a universal right in the same way many gun nuts do, I generally dislike the government having any out-of-pocket costs. If it’s something the government is requiring of you, it should be free. To me, if the government wants you to get your car inspected, that cost should be covered out of taxes, repairs to make your car pass inspection can fall on you, but the actual inspection should be footed by the government, there shouldn’t be any fees for drivers licenses, passports, marriage licenses, car registrations, etc. any sort of service the government provides, I think, should be free of any added fees. That should all be being paid from our taxes, which necessitates some increased taxes on the wealthy to cover them. And before anyone bring up me wanting to increase the tax stamp on machine guns, I basically view that as a sales tax, which I’m not in general, opposed to. I’d like to see more sales taxes like that on a lot of expensive luxury goods, especially since getting reasonable income tax from the wealthy seems unlikely anytime soon, if we can’t get it directly out of their income, we can make up at least some of the difference by heavily taxing their yachts, private jets, Lamborghinis, etc. when they buy them.
There’s a whole lot of gun laws and regulations that fall on the states, the courts, and the ATF, so even with the president and Congress on the same page, a lot of stuff can’t really get done easily, so I’m going to assume that the question is more “you can wave a magic wand and set the gun laws however you want them”
We’re pretty much going back to square one with basic definitions about what even is a firearm. No more “muzzle loaders aren’t firearms,” type bullshit. If there’s combustion propelling a projectile it’s a firearm. Depending on how technology advances, we also need to consider how we’re going to regulate things like rail/coil guns should those ever become widespread, and it may be worth lumping certain types of air gun into the category as well.
No private sales or transfers. Everything gets the full background check, no excuses. We’re also making those transfers free, available in more places (instead of going to a gun shop you can do them at a police station, with a notary, the DMV, post offices, etc.)
We’re tightening up that background check, getting all states on the same page about what sort of offenses disqualify someone from owning a firearm, how those offenses are reported, etc. officers, clerks, judges, whatever who drop the ball on making sure those offenses are reported correctly face big-time criminal liability if someone uses a gun in a crime that they purchased legally but shouldn’t.
More uniformity between different state laws, we need all of our systems working together seamlessly, a firearm that would make someone a felon in one state shouldn’t be legal to walk around with the next state over. We need to expand a whole lot of circumstances that would prevent someone from owning a gun (I work in 911 dispatch, we have some regulars in my area that police are at their home every week or even every night that we have caution notes attached to their addresses that someone there owns a gun or multiple guns despite the fact that they’re constantly getting into fights with their family, neighbors, seem to be constantly drunk out of their minds or are suffering from significant mental health problems. We need some way of separating those kinds people from their guns.)
We’re overhauling healthcare, and including mental healthcare along with regular physical healthcare. It’s going to be totally funded by the government, no out of pocket costs. It’s going to become as normal to go in to see a shrink once a year or so for a mental health check-up whether you’re having problems or not as it is to go in for your annual physical. You need a clean psych screen within the last year before any gun purchase, transfer, ammo purchase, or to renew a carry permit (which under point 4, enjoys complete reciprocity among all US states and territories) and under certain circumstances your doctor can advise the police that you’re a danger and they should remove any weapons you own.
Training, again free. No purchases or incoming transfers without a gun safety course. No carry permits without a more advanced course that also covers a whole lot legal, liability , moral, and ethical issues and a stringent marksmanship test.
You can get rimfire weapons, or manually-operated center-fire rifles and shotguns at 18. 21 for semi auto. We’re keeping the general NFA framework for machine guns intact but we’re raising the cost of the tax stamp drastically, legal NFA items are used in a vanishingly small percentage of crime, they’re not a major public safety issue, they’re more of a luxury good and a collectors item, so people can pay a big premium if they want one. We’re also moving all of the non-machine gun NFA items into the regular 21+ category, there’s too much hazy bullshit about short barreled rifles/shotguns and handguns that are functionally exactly the same but legally different because reasons. They’re all the same thing now. Silencers/suppressors are already pretty damn available under the NFA in most states to anyone who wants them and doesn’t mind jumping through a couple hoops, and again don’t get used in many crimes, and there’s some good arguments to be made for them being used to help protect hearing for recreational shooting. Things like binary triggers and bump stocks are getting regulated as machine gun parts, along with obvious examples like auto sears and lightning links because that’s what they’re trying to do while skirting the law.
Regarding “ghost guns” we’re going to call 80% receivers/frame guns now, they need to be serialized and those making and selling them needgo through all of the other hoops a regular gun manufacturer would need to go through. If you want to mill your own gun from a block of metal, or 3d print one, or cobble one together from plumbing parts, you also need to serialize it and submit records that that gun now exists. We can’t really do anything to enforce that at the point of manufacture, but if it turns up used in a crime we want to have some hope of tracing it and holding people responsible who allowed it to end up there. Really all gun parts except for basic screws, pins, etc. should be serialized and recorded the same way.
Storage- locks are mandatory when the gun is not under your direct supervision, and at home you must have a proper gun safe to store them. No leaving firearms in your vehicle regardless of how well you’ve hidden it, or what kind of safe you’ve bolted into your center console or glove box. Again, we can’t really enforce that until that gun ends up stolen or some kid gets ahold of it and shoots themselves or their friend, but it gives us an avenue to hold people responsible when that does happen. If you don’t store it properly and something happens, you’re facing jail time.
We’re doing some major lobbying reforms so that gun manufacturers and organizations like the NRA can’t basically just buy politicians anymore. Really, the NRA probably needs to be disbanded after the maria butina thing.
Cops have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else when they’re not on duty. No carrying around your duty weapon if you’re not on the clock. No exceptions that they can carry a firearm without a regular carry permit, no “no firearms allowed except for LEOs” type policies. If they’re not working, they’re not a cop.
This right here is common sense fucking gun laws, the manual.
Welcome to Canada? Enjoy the 1% reduction in income tax.
(Dear hillbilly Canucks: I know our rules are different, eg: the testing and training isn’t free. No need to whinge about it to me)
I prefer most, if not all of these. My only change id make is to make the training and such not free. I want to make it as painful as possible.
Disagree.
Education is safety.
People not knowing how to store and handle firearms are a huge liability.
Not training as in “how to put 5 center mass in 5 seconds”.
But training about how kids get hold of guns, correct storage, correct safeties, correct loading, correct holding.
Even things like how to defuse situations, how to identify actual threats, stuff like that.
I remember when i was a kid, i went to a police precinct and got to play on their training simulator. I completely missed the fact there was a gun on the floor and died to someone i didnt see, instead of the obviously hostile person i was “talking” to.
Training like that, except maybe less “police” oriented.
My goal isn’t to make it difficult for people to own guns in general, just to make sure that the people who do are safe and that they have no excuses not to be safe.
If someone, for whatever reason, really feels that they need a gun, they will get their hands on one regardless of legality.
If we put a bunch of barriers in the way of them getting one legally, they will choose to go the illegal route. If we make the process of getting a gun too burdensome or expensive, they will circumvent it, and then we have a person with a gun who probably won’t have the necessary training to be safe with it.
There’s also class issues, if we make it too expensive to own a gun, then only rich people will own guns. I don’t think the state of your bank account is in any way indicative of your ability to be a safe gun owner.
And if you’re a person who believes in an individual right to keep and bear arms, you’re probably not too keen on the government trying to lock that right behind a paywall. Personally, while I don’t necessarily think that it should be a universal right in the same way many gun nuts do, I generally dislike the government having any out-of-pocket costs. If it’s something the government is requiring of you, it should be free. To me, if the government wants you to get your car inspected, that cost should be covered out of taxes, repairs to make your car pass inspection can fall on you, but the actual inspection should be footed by the government, there shouldn’t be any fees for drivers licenses, passports, marriage licenses, car registrations, etc. any sort of service the government provides, I think, should be free of any added fees. That should all be being paid from our taxes, which necessitates some increased taxes on the wealthy to cover them. And before anyone bring up me wanting to increase the tax stamp on machine guns, I basically view that as a sales tax, which I’m not in general, opposed to. I’d like to see more sales taxes like that on a lot of expensive luxury goods, especially since getting reasonable income tax from the wealthy seems unlikely anytime soon, if we can’t get it directly out of their income, we can make up at least some of the difference by heavily taxing their yachts, private jets, Lamborghinis, etc. when they buy them.