Wow, I'm glad I read this all the way through. Especially Dersu's comments and statistics, thanks a bunch for those
To answer the OP's question, yes, I think the USA needs stricter gun laws. That doesn't mean we're going to take away your guns. That just means going through a long and tedious process to obtain guns. Will it make a difference? I believe it will. Fully automatic weapons have been heavily regulated. Do many people still own them? Yes. Are many crimes perpetrated by their owners? No, because they undergo extensive background checks, fingerprintings, several forms, and pay a $200 tax. In my opinion, assault weapons should be the same.
When someone buys a gun from an FFL, the cashier is required to do a background check with the NICS. According to the FBI site, this has led to over 100 million checks and over 700,00 denials during the last decade. This is good, but what of private sales? Yes, these are private matters, but that makes it more dangerous. However, this is something that would be very hard to enforce so I will leave it alone.
Every drivers license will also have a gun authorization defining what type of gun an individual is legally allowed to purchase.
The way to get the different authorizations will be via required training classes offered by registered training centers (I expect a large NRA participation since they are strong on safety and education)
To purchase any gun would require showing your ID. Private sellers would also need to see the ID and make a copy of it for their own protection to show they were not irresponsible and sold it to the wrong person.
The only background checks required would be for initial licensing and renewal.
So instead of focusing on registering the gun you will be registering the individuals. I don't care how many they own if they themselves are responsible.
If someone commits a crime and loses their gun rights, then that is a criminal enforcement issue which we already do with convicts.
I agree with most of this, except for the background check part. The NICS is basically a very quick background check, and takes a maximum of three days. Usually it can be done by a cashier very quickly.
I especially agree with the training part. It would bring down accidents, as well as allow civilians to deal with their problems more effectively. I think Switzerland was mentioned before. Men in Switzerland are required to undergo military training at some point in their lives. They receive an M-57 and 24 rounds that they keep in their homes. This leads to many guns in Switzerland, but in spite of all this there is very little gun related crime in Switzerland. Of course, guns and a national sense of responsibility and defense of country are deeply rooted in their culture, but I don't think the low crime rate can be entirely attributed to that.
Here's a BBC article on this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1566715.stm
