Late to this thread. I’ll say I’m shocked that it has remained civil, and it’s not nearly as one-sided, pro-gun as I expected.
This turned out really stinkin’ long, so apologies for that. But there’s a lot on my mind, maybe it will be informative.
The one thing I want to point out is that universal background checks, the main talking point You hear about because it was recently proposed in the senate, would not have prevented this crime. This young man legally procured his weapons and presumably passed a NICS check twice in 3 days. I don’t say that to say expanded background checks are a bad idea- but it’s a little bit of a red herring and I don’t think is understood by many people. Every gun sold by a dealer in this country has to undergo a background check. The only sales that don’t require this check, other than between licensed parties, are face-to-face transactions between private parties. This includes (but is by no means limited to) private sales at gun shows and sales that are listed online, but sold face to face.
So what “Universal” background checks- what has most recently passed the house and failed to receive a vote in the senate- wants to do is require every private party transaction to done subject to a background check. If you want to trade your 30-06 to a guy in your hunting club for his .270, you’ve got to go to an FFL and each do a background check. To me, I think that’s overkill- not to mention really hard to enforce.
A better solution, in my opinion, is the Manchin-Toomey proposal from a while back. That would require a background check at gun shows and sales that are advertised online (sales presumably between strangers).
Now that proposal has issues as well- particularly that it alters the “Brady date” rules. That rule currently says that if the NICS (FBI division that handles background checks) can’t complete the background check within 3 business days, federal law does not prohibit the transfer of the firearm. This is the so-called “Charleston loophole”- and Manchin-Toomey would actually EXPAND this loophole by shortening the window to 48 hours. Now, despite the fact that I don’t know why a background check should take more than 3 business days, the fact is that some of them do, and some firearms are transferred to prohibited persons based on this. Shortening that window is hard for me to fathom. I believe the NICS system needs work to eliminate these cases. (The democrats bill that stalled out in the senate would expand this window- I believe to require a week for the check to be completed. Again, the system needs overhauling if you can’t say yes or no within 3 business days).
That is probably as far as you could reasonably get without really setting off the pro-gun folks.
Personally, my feelings would not be hurt by limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds, and raising the age on “Military-Style weapons” (however you define that) to 21. Yes, I appreciate the irony of this when you can join the ACTUAL MILITARY at 18.
There’s also the multiple gun reporting law- currently dealers are required to report when someone buys multiple handguns at a time, or within a few days. You could easily expand that to include these so-called “Military style” weapons (again, however those are defined). That’s something I haven’t seen anyone pushing for, but would make a lot of sense (especially after the Uvalde shooter did just that) and might actually be something you could accomplish politically.
The other thing that could make sense and be effective is expanded “red flag” laws. It could stop a lot of these shootings if done right- it could also potentially deprive a lot of people of their rights unnecessarily if done wrong or abused. Or it could do nothing if it’s not acted on, such as in the Buffalo shooting. No one really trusts the authorities on either side, so it’s probably a non-starter.
Again, I know this is long and rambling, but I look forward to thoughtful responses if anyone made it this far. Also downvotes, because those are inevitable.