Registration of all handguns.

[DanTex]

48. There are two sides to this, moral and political.

From a moral perspective, I think it is right for gun owners to pay the cost of registering their guns. In fact, I think guns and ammo should be taxed above and beyond registration costs, in order to pay for the costs to society of gun violence. This would be an externality tax, similar to taxing carbon emissions. If the tax is so high that it dissuades some people from owning a gun, that is a good thing, in the same way that if a carbon tax gets more people to buy hybrids or carpool or ride bikes, that is part of the goal.

From a political perspective, I keep hearing over and over that "gun owners think X", but then the actual polls tell a different story. Almost half of gun owners support registration, along with about 70% of the general public. For reference, 70% is about the fraction of Americans that believe Obama was born in the US. So, sure, maybe with some effort we could increase support for registration to, say, 75%, but what is much more important is to mobilize the 70% majority that already exists.

In short, trying to talk sense to militant gun fanatics is not the path to sensible gun laws.