I'm "gifting" what I think is a really good article that contains ways to help reduce gun violence. Of course, implementing these things won't be easy, and they won't prevent all or even most gun deaths, but I think they are all good suggestions. I hope at least a few of you will take the time to read the link and give your opinions. The article was updated from a 2018 one. it's long so I'll only post part of the intro.
https://wapo.st/3ASGNZl
For far too long, those who oppose gun reforms have said that nothing can be done to stem the violence.
Those claims are demonstrably wrong. Research on gun violence is notoriously underfunded, but the data we do have shows that well-designed gun laws informed by science can save lives.
Point #1--ban semi-auto. Oops, that's the vast majority of guns out there. Revolvers also have the same rate of fire, just smaller magazines and slower reloads.
Point #2--age 21. Note the conditions--legally owned firearm. That's not most guns used in crime. And even then it's only 17%. In other words, this is small potatoes.
Point #3--stop the flow of guns. They're looking at countries, but try a better data set: states. There's an inverse relationship between guns and crime.
Point #3B--gun buybacks. Political show, meaningless. They're using Australia's forced buyback for data--and even that had no overall effect on the murder rate. The trend line continues to decline, their gun taking is irrelevant.
Point #4--bulk purchases. Two problems come to mind: Casualty losses (you're replacing a group of guns that were stolen/destroyed) and estate sales (can't buy all the guns in an estate.) I think it needs some refinement.
Point #4B--holding dealers accountable. In other words, the regulators aren't doing their jobs. Note the outliers, look at them and see if they're actually miscreants or just outliers. Look at what has happened with the crackdown on pill mill docs--they're actually nailing the chronic pain docs and that's lead to a lot of suicides without any proof the docs did wrong.
Point #5--background checks. This actually enjoys broad support if it's not made intrusive, but the left is continually shooting itself in the foot here by trying to go too far. I've already addressed this one.
Point #6--the 72 hour time limit. On this one I'm going to take a hard no. The regulators need to get off their asses and fix whatever's slowing things down. Government slowness is a big problem in society in general, Congress showed unusual intelligence in putting the time limit into the measure to keep it from intruding in this case. I think a lot more interactions with the government should have such clocks on them.
Point #6B--domestic violence. If you're going to do that you need to beef up the ability to deal with such cases. Otherwise you get what happened here--prosecutors undercharge to avoid triggering it because they simply didn't have the resources and courtrooms to deal with it. Passing a law and not providing the means to deal with it if anything makes matters worse.
Point #6C--waiting periods. Note that they are only addressing suicide here, they're irrelevant to crime. And note that this basically becomes moot if you go with the gun license approach I favor.
Point #6D--mental health data. Leaking that into the system means many people will avoid getting help in the first place. Only the most serious cases should go into the system.
Point #6E--red flag laws. Some big gotchas here. The concept looks good on it's face, but it can be used for retaliation (the flagged person should have recourse if they can show it's false reporting) and in many places temporarily seize becomes de-facto confiscate. (By the time you get them back you owe more for the storage than they're worth.) And the data looks utterly bogus--averted 21 potential mass shootings? Little numbers problem there.
I do pretty much agree with their final approach, though. Replace our current system with a gun license approach. I would make an exception for
directly supervised use, though--so long as the supervisor is licensed the shooter doesn't have to be.