When passed at the national level, just three fairly popular laws could save many thousands of lives per year, according to a recent article in the Lancet. The Lancet is an old and very reputable British medical journal that is not afraid to discuss many different topics regarding saving and extending lives. No wacky ideas (well, not too many), no conspiracy theories, just doctors writing for doctors. There is usually nothing controversial, but I expect the gun manufacturers and the NRA will fire up their propaganda machine for this article: “Firearm legislation and firearm mortality in the USA: a cross-sectional, state-level study”
www.thelancet.com/…
The short version is that across-the-board background checks for all gun sales and ammunition sales, and a gun license, if implemented at a national level, would decrease gun deaths in the U.S. by “up to 90%”. That’s probably an optimistic number, but let’s say 50% is reasonable: that would mean about 15,000 fewer people would die every year in the U.S. (The 90% number would cut gun deaths by 27,000-30,000 per year.) The analysis uses real statistics and compares 25 state laws. These three, if done together and nationally, would stop gun transfers across states lines from states with weak laws to states with stronger laws. None of these are ZOMG!!!11! Confiscation! scenarios. None of these laws would stop a gun owner from buying more guns. As far as a gun license ID, many GOP-dominated states require stricter IDs for voting and driving than for gun sales. All of these laws are quite popular with people nationally across the political spectrum, in fact. I’m kind of shocked this didn’t show up alrady on DK, but I waited and searched. The Christian Science Monitor newspaper website has a very good summary, critique and discussion, so I will leave the rest of the explanation to them: www.csmonitor.com/...