I don't like frivolous laws that don't accomplish their goals any more than anyone else. Which is why I've called for the ability of the CDC or other appropriate agency to fully study the issue in the same way the CBO studies economic proposals. I'm also not opposed to sunset provisions if no impact of the law can be found after a reasonable amount of time has passed.
No, the way you'd do that is have your study first,
then craft laws around that, not the other way around. The problem with this is we've got five main areas of concern with gun death by civilian:
1.) Suicide. Excepting minors getting access to a firearm and killing themselves (because they are minors they should not be allowed to make that call by themselves), this is adults wanting to have control over their own bodies - and I am
sure the majority of these Gun Grabbers wouldn't want the Gov or anyone else telling adults what they can do with their own bodies (although I have this funny funny feeling we're going to see that argument made...Nick? Up for some Nick'ing?). Since no laws are going to prevent the vast majorities of these adult suicides (I'm going to go out on limb and say people wanting to off themselves aren't going to go buy their first firearm too often...it's something they already have), a reduction in this number isn't going to happen. And it shouldn't happen. If an adult doesn't want to live and wants to go out by their own hand, who are we to get in the way of that?
2.) Accidental shootings. You can lump this into AD, intentionally firing at a legitimate target but not meaning to actually shoot what the bullet hit, etc. No additional laws are going to appreciably reduce this number.
3.) Actual intentional legitimate shooting of someone, i.e. shoot the criminal. We'd never want to limit this number, the more criminals that are shot, and hopefully killed, the better. Save for a training requirement (that is, a poll tax via having to pay for training), not going to reduce this number by laws, nor should we. I'm perfectly fine with the robber or mugger or auto thief or etc. not roaming this earth any longer.
And now the final two...
4.) Dumbfucks shooting people they shouldn't be shooting. For example, an 'if I had a son' shooting another 'if I had a son' because, well, who really knows... Or, an 'if I had an uncle' shooting an 'if I had 9 year old son' because another 'if I had an uncle' had a beef with him. Brilliance! Or, Billy Bo Bob shooting his mothers cousins step-kid because he heard he stole his meth stash. No laws will prevent this stupidity because none of these people GAF about laws - they're on their own wavelength. With 300M+ firearms in the US, you will never take enough firearms off the street
in a legit non-2A non-Gun Grabber manner to put a dent in this number.
5.) Mentally disturbed people who manifest their insanity by shooting up people for no valid reason. As Bummer has already confirmed, legislation isn't going to prevent this.
So given all the above (and, it's a given on the vast majority), exactly what legislation is going to solve them here in Realityland? We won't even get into it's none of the Govs fucking business what firearms I possess...
I'd prefer an investment into smart gun technology that works over that requiring a safe. That way if a gun is stolen it will have little value to a thief. Plus some people prefer to keep their gun close and readily accessible in the case of intrusion.
The problem I see with the smart weapons is they'd be too easily defeatable, not to mention it won't solve valid owners with valid access to their firearms going on a bender and killing people. Theft it might
initially help but because guns are by necessity able to be broken down to be cleaned, I don't see how a smart gun could not have the 'smart' features removed. It has a smart trigger? Great. I steal a gun, get a drop in trigger mailed to wherever I need it mailed so it's not traced back to me. Poof. The smart gun is now a dumb gun. All we did was poll tax via legislation for required features and it didn't do a damn thing.