Lethal Passage

Buying a firearm should be among the most difficult purchases a consumer in America can make, instead of one of the easiest. Toughening the process of acquiring a firearm in the United States will not harm legitimate gun owners. Reducing the firepower of military style weapons will not penalize responsible gun owners. The right laws can reduce the incidence of impulsive teenage suicides. The right laws can limit the firepower of street guns and save the lives of innocent bystanders. The right laws can demonstrate society's conviction that owning a gun imparts a huge responsibility to the owner.

A uniquely American problem

Many Americans can buy a gun, legally, in less than an hour. Toughening the process of purchasing a firearm will not harm responsible gun collectors any more than establishing a licensing process for hunters and boaters has harmed them. Stricter requirements will reduce the flow of weapons to people who intend to use them as the killing machines they are. By updating the current distribution network of guns, the purchasing process, and the design of guns themselves we can begin to tackle the firearm epidemic in America.

Distribution

Any serious effort to halt the mass migration of weapons to irresponsible hands must begin by looking at the firearms distribution network. In America today it is ludicrously easy to secure a license to buy and sell guns. An entire supply chain has been built to make guns easy to offer for sale. Obtaining Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs) is easy- the ATF lists just two steps on their website. Such a license allows an individual to import weapons and ammunition at wholesale prices. Last year, 139,840 FFLs were operating throughout the United States, with Texas (10,910), California (8,261), and Florida (7,507) home to the highest number of FFLs.

This assumes you could be bothered with securing such a license at all. In the United States, the private sale and purchase of guns and firearms are completely unsupervised and are not recorded. If you own multiple firearms and wish to sell them, you could take them all to a gun show and sell them without dealing with registration or performing a background check. The aim of universal background checks for gun transactions is written to directly address this loophole.

The primary aim of the following proposed regulations would be to shrink the number of licensed dealers to a core group of those willing to take the time and energy to run a bona fide business. These dealers would benefit from reduced competition and from converting as customers those consumers who would otherwise become "kitchen-table" or garage gun dealers just to buy guns themselves at wholesale prices.

• Increase the cost of a basic gun-dealer license and require a one-time business entry fee. As it stands now obtaining a Federal Firearms License is only a few hundred dollars. This should be increased to at least $2,500 to obtain Type 1 FFLs.
• Require that a prospective gun dealer show proof that they have met all local and state regulations governing the operation of a business. For example, they could provide evidence that their future dealership satisfies all local zoning requirements. This requires that FFLs maintain a physical business storefront.
• Require that every new dealer take a course designed to familiarize them with federal firearm laws, with the ways in which buyers try to evade those laws, and with proper techniques for protecting firearms and ammunition from robbers and burglars. Dealers should demonstrate a basic working knowledge of firearms and firearms law by passing a licensing examination, as doctors and lawyers must do. A dealer would be required to attend refresher seminars every few years to re-validate their license. These seminars would inform dealers on changes to federal regulations and the latest information of firearms trafficking.
• Establish a scale of penalties for failure to keep accurate records. If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (AFT) discovers that a dealer has failed to accurately record transactions three (3) times, the ATF could immediately revoke the license. Any dealer who refuses to cooperate with an ATF trace request, even once, would likewise lose their license.
• Require mandatory inspections of the business premise for all new licensees. A dealer's license should remain provisional until the dealer passes their inspection or until six (6) months elapse, whichever comes first.

Purchase

Innocent lives can be saved simply by educating consumers about the weapons they hope to purchase. There are grave dangers inherent to owning a firearm, and ownership should come with a sense of responsibility.

• Require applicants to demonstrate a minimum level of proficiency with a handgun or a rifle. This would be an in-person aptitude test at a firing range, where rental guns are already common. Some countries require buyers to accurately hit a target or demonstrate safe handling procedures.
• Allow licensed gun owners to acquire guns in any state and to transport guns to any state. A more rigorous federal licensing program would allow states and local municipalities to repeal the patchwork of laws across the United States today, making life easier for hunters, private detectives, and even law-enforcement officers who travel or relocate from one part of the country to another.
• Designate the use or manufacture of a counterfeit firearms license a felony, with a mandatory sentence of five (5) years in federal prison.
• Set the minimum age of purchase at twenty-one for both handguns and rifles. Currently you can buy a long-gun and long-gun ammunition at age eighteen. The majority of mass murderers obtain their firearms legally.
• Limit purchases of handguns to one a month. Collectors and other with a compelling reason for buying more than one weapon at a time could be exempted.
• Establish a waiting period of ten (10) business days between purchase and the transfer of a firearm. This would allow the ATF time to conduct a proper background check and create a cool-off period for consumers intent on killing themselves or others in an emotional state. This law could include a provision for emergency exemptions in situations where a gun buyer can demonstrate an immediate threat to their life if they cannot purchase a gun immediately.
• Enact a nationwide version of the parental-liability laws that are now in place in Florida and California. These laws hold parents criminally liable if their children wound themselves or others using a parent's improperly stored firearm.
• Up to 90% of guns used by minors in suicides, unintentional shootings, and school shootings are found in the child’s home or the home of a relative. Child access prevention (CAP) laws are an important tool for reducing these child gun deaths. CAP laws encourage the safe storage of firearms by imposing liability on adults who allow children to have unsupervised access to guns. Key features of effective CAP laws would include requiring guns to be stored in a locked container, imposing civil liability for damages resulting from the discharge of a firearm for those who negligently store firearms, and criminal liability for those who negligently store firearms under circumstances where minors could gain access to the firearm, regardless of whether the minor actually gains access or uses them. The Giffords foundation has a comprehensive breakdown on CAP laws for additional detail.

Gun Design

The firepower of readily available consumer guns should be reduced and restricted, and gun designs should be improved to make them safer for the people who buy them. A national database of gun statistics, including what makes, models, and calibers of guns most often used in crimes, should be established. The sale or transfer of silencers should be outlawed, and the sale or possession of magazines having capacity for more than ten (10) bullets should be forbidden.

• Loaded-chamber indicators should be required on handguns and rifles. These provide a visual and tactile indication that a cartridge is chambered in the weapon. Pistols with a loaded-chamber indicator that protrudes from the top of the slide just behind the ejection port are effective both visually and from a tactile perspective.
• The gun industry's lack of safety regulation means that manufacturers are not compelled to fix defects unless lawsuits are brought by injured gun owners. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) acknowledges that 40 percent of all new guns contain some type of defect. Defective handguns may contain defects in design or manufacture making them likely to unintentionally discharge, sometimes when simply jarred or shaken. No other industry is allowed to operate with such impunity for consumer welfare.
• The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) should be expanded to include private gun sales and other transfers. One study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2017, polled 1,613 people who had recently acquired a gun. Of them, 78% had gone through a NICS background check and 22% did not. Of the 22%, 13% purchased the gun online, from family or friends, or from another un-licensed source that didn’t require a NICS check. The remaining 9% acquired the gun without a purchase, like in an inheritance or as a gift.
• Pass a federal “red-flag” law. These laws allow concerned citizens, usually family members, to petition to have someone’s right to own a firearm temporarily halted. If it can be proven to a court that someone has significant tendencies to violence or mental instability, that person will not be allowed to purchase or possess a gun.
• Magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds of ammunition are generally considered “large capacity” magazines. Large capacity magazines are often used in mass shootings because they allow a shooter to keep firing for longer periods of time, increasing casualties and reducing victims’ ability to escape or intervene. These magazines, for any type of firearm, should be banned. “Conversion” or “repair” kits that can be used to build large capacity ammunition magazines from spare parts should be prohibited.

The research is clear: gun laws work. The nation’s courts agree: gun laws are fully compatible with the Second Amendment. And the American people have spoken: our weak gun safety laws are killing nearly 40,000 Americans every year. Something must change.