1. Fully fund the ATF so that they can do the job we charter them for, which is tracking illegal gun sales and prosecuting corrupts FFLs.
You mean that agency that is responsible for killing dozens, if not hundreds of innocent people, including
more children at Waco than at Sandy Hook? You mean that agency that has repeatedly been caught
using mentally disabled people in unlawful stings? You mean that agency that has repeatedly
run guns into the hands of drug cartels leading the to deaths of multiple Americans and likely thousands of Mexicans?
You say fully fund. I say put in jail.
2. Track the registration numbers of all firearms so that we can identify the conduits by which guns pass from legal hands to illegal hands and shut them down.
Using registration to do what you propose is a pipe dream. Let's use Michigan as an example. As an alleged gun owner in Michigan, you should know that we not only have the equivalent of a "universal" background check on pistols, we also have registration for pistols too. Is our crime rate any lower? No. Do our police solve crime at a higher percentage? Nope. Essentially, there is no measurable positive effect from these systems.
In 2012, the MSP was asked in a committee hearing if they had ever used the pistol database to solve a crime. They were unable to come up with a single example. Not one. Canada recently got rid of a database for the exact same reason.
Your intent may be good here, but the practical effects are not what you are looking for. Add in the down sides of registration like cost and confiscation, and it's easy to see why so few actually do it.
You can read many more examples here:
http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/licensing-and-registration/3. Hold all gun owners responsible for their weapons, to include law enforcement officers. If you fail to secure your weapon properly and it is stolen and used in a crime, you as the owner are on the hook for your inadequate storage.
Gun owners are already held responsible for negligence. You can find enough examples with a simple Google search. However, what you are suggesting is not about negligence of gun owners, it's about punishing gun owners for the illegal activities of criminals. This flies in the face of any common sense.
If I steal your car and use it to drive through a parade of people, should you be prosecuted for each death I cause?
Should negligent people be prosecuted? Sure, and they already are.
4. Mandatory firearms training. Basic safety and competency training before you buy a firearm, similar to the CPL requirements in many states. If you want to conceal or open carry, we raise the bar a bit and require that you attend a tactical shooting course to learn the skills you would need to safely engage targets. Despite our best intentions, none of us are natural born shooters. Therre are very specific skills and techniques to learn in order to engage a bad guy in a public venue, either to defend yourself or others. By sheer volume of applicants the cost of these courses would be kept much lower than today's costs.
First, no. What you suggest is antithetical to the free exercise of a right.
Second, I think you fundamentally don't understand the aspects of a defensive scenario and how it differs from an offensive one. According to
research conducted at the University of Chicago, officers shot roughly 5.5 times as many innocent bystanders as armed citizens. Add in the fact that officers were engaged in half as many encounters and that means officers were 11 times as likely to shoot an innocent bystander as an armed civilian. The biggest reason for that is citizens engage in almost entirely defensive encounters. They don't have to enter an unknown volatile situation. Defensive encounters are almost entirely at short distances, where offensive encounters may not be.
Third, if you wish to push something, then the burden is on you to prove its value. If you do the research I think you will find out that "basic" training doesn't have the effect you think it has. Michigan's standards are rather high when compared nationally. However, other states don't have a higher accident rate or crime rate amongst gun owners. The number of states that do not require any training or licensing is up to 7. Are those states worse off because if it? Nope.
So again, I say the burden is on you here.
