Quote:If I had the answer to that, I'd be running for President. That's what the discussion at a national level is for. I do have a few ideas:

 

1. Lengthen waiting periods for a more thorough background check.

2. That background check must include a thorough review of medical history. Mental illness of any kind, including depression, means no gun for you.

3. Make it illegal for guns to be gifted or passed down without the recipient passing the same background check.

4. If a person commits a crime using your gun and you hadn't previously reported it stolen, you are charged with negligence and/or providing a firearm to an unlicensed individual. This includes parents who don't properly secure their weapons, allowing their children of any age to get a hold of them.

 

I also have some more broad ideas about limiting the number/type of weapons that can be owned by anyone or any organization (including police, FBI, etc., military exempted), limiting the amount of ammunition you can legally possess, etc., but I'm not an expert on gun laws. A lot of it is simply making sure we do a better job of enforcing the gun laws we have on the books, and there's no doubt that those laws failed in this instance.

 

An idea I've kicked around in my head in the past is banning concealed carry nationwide and making open carry legal everywhere except schools at the same time. If we're going to have guns, we might as well be upfront about it, and if the Charleston shooter had walked into that church and seen four of the nine parishioners packing heat, maybe he'd have had a change of heart about pulling out that gun of his own. There aren't many things that can make you rethink an action taken against another human being like seeing a firearm strapped to said human being's waist can.

 

1.  The waiting period is long enough.

2.  The background check already includes checking health records (as far as I know).

3.  This would make it very difficult to enforce.  As an example, when my grandfather passed away I got his gun collection.  For what it's worth, included in that collection are a lot of "vintage" firearms that I'll probably never use, but do display.

4.  There are already negligence laws on the books.

 

Limiting the number and/or types of weapons is not an option.  Again, you are targeting innocent individuals, the vast majority of them legal and law abiding citizens.  I personally happen to own a pretty good sized gun collection, and I have ammunition for a lot of them.

 

You also want to cuff and limit capabilities of law enforcement, and I disagree with that as well.

 

Banning concealed carry is not really a good idea.  What you are doing is placing law abiding citizens in harm's way.  I get your point, but being "open carry" would take us back to the days of the "wild west" that so many "anti gun" people bring up.  Open carry works in more rural areas, but it certainly wouldn't work in a place like Washington DC or New York City.

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