Brainstorming for Gun Laws

It's not like I stay up nights trying to figure out new and creative gun laws. 

Or, do I?

I've got another one. No, actually I've got two.

1) Ban straw purchases. If you buy or obtain a gun for someone else, you go to jail. Actually, as I look this up, I find its already against the law. A Supreme Court ruling in 2014, in fact, upheld the law.

2) Send anyone to jail who is involved in the sale or transfer of a gun without a background check being done. Yes, gun dealers are required to perform background checks. This would go a step further. It amounts to universal background checks, which have been advocated by gun control folks for a long time. 

Ah, the night is young. Can I think of anything else? 

3) How about a law that sends you to jail if you lend your gun to someone else? Write the law so you can still take someone target shooting and allow them to use your gun. Allow guns to be rented out at shooting ranges, if that is the way it is done. But require the person lending the gun to be present when the other person is using the gun. If you just lend out the gun in any other fashion -- if you let someone borrow it overnight or whatever -- that becomes illegal.

4) How about a law that makes it illegal for parents to let children use or even hold guns unless the parent is present. If the parent knowingly lets an underage person possess the gun, that's one level of the crime. But, if the parent lets the gun fall into possession of the child just through neglect, that is a lesser level of the crime, but still serious. 

5) Hold it as a crime if your weapon is used in the commission of a crime. If you let it fall into possession of the criminal though any act of neglect and then that gun ends up being used in a crime, you are responsible.

6) Make it a misdemeanor to knowingly not turn someone in for possessing a weapon they are either restricted from having or which they purchased in an illegal fashion. This would be hard to enforce, and I would not go too hard after those who do not follow it. Still, I read one source saying 93 percent of the guns used in crimes are obtained illegally. If we could get guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, we go a long ways towards reducing gun violence. Usually, when someone has a gun illegally, there's someone who is aware of it. If we could encourage them to anonymously report the possession, it might make a difference. 

Gun control? Is it bad? The term can be used a lot of different ways. To some, it means outlawing guns. To others, it simply means regulating them to keep them out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them. Yes, we should be staying awake nights thinking of ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't possess them.