Time for a fucking initiative. Or one requiring insurance for gun owners. Or allowing Tim Eyman to be used for live target practice.

I don’t believe in Schrodinger's Cop, a government official that is supposed to simultaneously protect you with no legal compulsion to do so, and Qualified Immunity if they slay you on the thinnest of premises.
Because I don't believe in Schrodinger's Cop, I don't believe in 'Assault Weapons', I believe in Modern Sporting Rifles, and that keeping them in our homes is necessary.

@3: "Straw poll with loaded question methodology from a progressive think tank."

And then a local news channel conducted their own straw poll of their viewers on the topic. And came up with 82% against a ban. Yeah, it's my demographic against yours. But then can politicians risk their political careers by following the wrong set of numbers? Particularly when both sides of the issue have goals of "generating public sentiment" rather then uncovering the truth.

Hey why not. Wont help a thing though. If someone wants an assault rifle they can literally be someplace legal by lunchtime.

@5: "Or one requiring insurance for gun owners."

Done. My homeowner's liability already covers that. And the additional cost to provide such insurance is down in the statistical noise level. Having a backyard pool would be more expensive.

Given the insurance industries attention to actual risk and avoidance of politics, I'm OK with this. But then I'm already in a position to have a policy. Poor people with a gun but little or no other wealth to protect with a liability policy might not be happy with the additional expense. But then we're all happy with regressive policies that harm the poor, right?

Literally thousands of people would be alive now, if assault rifles were unavailable to the general public. They would not have been murdered, maimed, or wounded, including a relative of mine.

Even more would be alive if handguns were unavailable to the general population, including a friend of mine.

Other countries comparable to ours have angry people, and murderous people, and people with mental health issues.

They do not have our death rate from guns.

What is the difference? Ready availablility of guns in America, both legal and illegal.

Nobody is going to turn in any guns. Nobody is going to buy any insurance. Nobody is going to register any weapons. No matter what laws are passed. Your plans are all a fantasy.

"Given that scarcity, they are incredibly expensive. $10,000, $20,000, even up to $100,000 each. Bubbas just don't grab a piece out of their collection and go shooting the neighborhood up."

Total nonsense. You find an assault style rifle for under $500. And they not even remotely "scarce."

https://grabagun.com/firearms/rifles/ar-15-rifles-ar-10-ak47.html

@14: "You find an assault style rifle"

Style? So, we're talking about banning stuff based on appearance?

11: False. You may want to hide your head in the sand, but murder via assault rifle is happening more and more often. Sandy Hook was not unique. Las Vegas was not unique. It is happening more and more often, as the supply of such weapons burgeons.

They are not limited strictly enough.

When is the last time that someone in the U.S. was murdered by a machine gun? No, I can't remember either. Those weapons are stringently regulated. Assault rifles are not adequately regulated--people are being murdered by them.

13: You may be correct. Can we be as good as Australia, or New Zealand? Each had one mass shooting, then gave up their weapons. Us? ....

@17: How unpatriotic of you.

@16: "When is the last time that someone in the U.S. was murdered by a machine gun?"

Las Vegas. But that was due to a loophole, since plugged. Those weapons are not allowed for civilian ownership if manufactured after 1986.

Assault wespons? I really don't know what they are. Aside from the ATFs definition, there are potentially 50 different descriptions in various laws. Some written by crazy old ladies who bring loaded AK47s to press conferences. Anything with a thumb hole to a shoulder thing that goes up. I dare you to compile sane statistics on this situation.

@17: No. That is false.

In Vegas, that was an assault rifle with a bump stock that was used to murder and wound so many people. It was not an actual machine gun.

I am not justifying or excusing bump stocks. They are bad.

I am making the point that regulations of actual machine guns are so strict, that we have not seen a mass murder using an actual machine gun in many decades.

Yeah, yeah, hide behind that bromide of "what really is an assault rifle." It's like pornography: we know it when we see it. Even more so, we know what it is when we are murdered by it.