Bleh. I'd have hoped that this board, at least, could avoid the usual ideological traps that this debate inevitably slides into.

The issue most immediately facing the US, with regards to firearms, is criminal gun violence. That includes outliers like the recent spate of spree killings, but it mostly consists of criminals shooting each othe and, to a somewhat lesser degree, criminals shooting non-criminals.

Guns as a means of revolution isn't a real concern at this point. For those who want them, guns of the desired type are still readily available, limited only by manufacturing capacity; that is unlikely to change in the near future, and even if it does, the guns we already have will still be legal even in a worst-case scenario.

The guns most frequently used in crime (and even non-crime gun violence) are overwhelmingly cheap semi-automatic pistols. "Assault weapons" make up anywhere from 1-2%. There is absolutely no good reason to go after "assault weapons". It makes zero sense, from the perspective of attempting to solve the US's most pressing gun-related problem, to try to ban "assault weapons". I'm putting that phrase in quotes because it's a truly ridiculous phrase.

Again, what we need to focus on is keeping guns from getting into the hands of people who should not have them. That means un-castrating the ATF, it means monetizing gun busts for local law enforcement the way drug busts are handled now, it means enacting stronger penalties for straw buyers (here's a thought: jail time! We put guys in jail for years for ounces of weed, but we hand out light fines for pounds and pounds and pounds of guns?), it means lowering the evidence threshold to prosecute (again, currently you must show separate, concrete criminal intent for each and every gun in an alleged straw buy--it's ridiculous).