Just to flog this old, dead horse for some background to my point: in my interpretation, America and guns are inseparable. Rights “endowed by our creator” (whatever “creator” means to you) concerning keeping and bearing arms are acknowledged in the Constitution (not granted by it, but acknowledged by it as being intrinsic), and the gun culture here is more than in most other countries. They’re part of the DNA of the country, whether we all like or agree with it or not.
This adds a huge layer of difficulty to any legislation against firearms, and in my opinion, rightfully so: it’s very very easy to give up a right, but very very difficult (pretty much impossible without violence) to get a right back. It’s not really something you can “try out;” once they’re gone, I doubt we’ll get them back. In my opinion, that’s not acceptable.
That said, I am personally not against actually reasonable, common-sense gun laws, many of which are already in place: actual fully-automatic machine guns are prohibitive to acquire, we have ID requirements, license requirements (in many places), background checks (I’ve done them!), waiting periods (in many cases), and the gut feeling of the person behind the counter selling to you (if you look shady, you probably won’t be sold to; gun store owners have a livelihood to maintain after all). The issue is that in many many cases, the laws we have aren’t enforced properly and a lot of people slip through the cracks.
Pretty much anyone who’s used a legally-purchased gun in these crimes has slipped through a crack somewhere, especially in the background checks department, either because government bureaucracy is not exactly as communicative as it should be between departments, or efficient in any way even on a good day, and a lot of red flags are ignored, lost, or just not even reported (especially potentially dangerous mental health issues), or because a friend or family member trusts someone who shouldn’t be trusted too much.
We really need to focus on enforcing the laws we do have right now than just piling more on.
Uh… let me know if I actually addressed your question there. Haha.
JEDIT: Jeebus kinda said similar to what I was getting at. Thanks man.