Is the real problem the anonymity? When guns are used in a crime, the perpetrators are rarely the registered owners of that gun. When Mexican drug cartels facilitate their beheadings with guns, they rarely stop to fill out the proper paperwork. What can be done about the identity and custodial problems in our gun laws?
Recently, I commented on another user's diary about the relationship that liberals have with the 2nd amendment- you know, guns (my comment was hidden, but can be seen here). Another commenter, JR, made the astute point that advocating gun control does not necessarily make you anti-gun; and such is the case with me. Me? I'm a former Marine, and I like guns. They're fun to shoot, and there may be good reasons to have one (or many!) in your house. The OP was trying to point out the disconnect that many liberals have regarding our gun policy, and that changing the way we deal with this problem would be politically wise, given that it's an issue pretty much owned by Republicans. I agree with her, in that liberals have an opportunity to shed the oft-repeated conservative lie that they are soft on crime, or just soft. But the OP also stated a position that sounds a lot like the typical Teabagging rhetoric around guns. She seems to have equated gun control with an attack on our 2nd amendment rights- a type of Manichean thinking that pretty much excludes analysis or further debate (you can see the attraction for the right). This is simplistic, maybe dangerously so, and liberals need more than just contrarian blather: we need policy that makes sense! But what policy?
Gun ownership is an emotional issue- guns instill fear in most people, and rightly so, as they are deadly. But guns are also a fact of life, and integral to the story of America. Let's face it: guns won't be going away, at least not anytime soon. Guns are so entrenched here that it makes me wonder where these perceived attacks on the 2nd amendment are coming from...that's right, nowhere! In light of the fact that NO administration has stated that it wishes to curtail any part of the 2nd, I think that the noise to that effect has its real roots in an emotional over-reaction. People who hold an untenable position are hyperventilating because they know that the future will probably not be kind to their point of view. This paranoia about the 2nd is suffered mainly by the Teabagging party- emotional heavy (mouth!) breathers if ever there were. And why is their position untenable/illogical/irrelevant? Because the issues around guns, and gun violence, are not a matter of rights- they are a matter of crime.
There's a lot of crime involving guns in America; so much, that most people see the need for some kind of control of these ubiquitous weapons. The crimes that are facilitated by guns are very difficult to prosecute- criminals are getting away with it because it's damn near impossible to connect a perpetrator with a particular gun. The gun might have a serial number, but it may also be stolen, or borrowed, and the gun usually goes with the person that used it when they leave the scene. Bullets are cheap, and about as traceable as leaves of grass. This is the situation, and because it has at least one obvious but unacceptable solution (take 'em all away!), shortsighted people will naturally leap to the conclusion that their rights are in danger.
Which is sad, because it doesn't have to be that way. Our deep natural reserves of Gun Nuts have confused control with abolition, all because they can't imagine how to solve the problem of traceability. I admit, it's technically daunting, but definitely NOT insoluble. First, there are chemical taggants- now required by Switzerland for all explosives produced there- that could be a required component of gunpowder. This would allow the origin of even trace amounts of gunpowder to be established. Second, bullets could be manufactured with an ID chip- RFID components could be made right inside the lead slug. There are a plethora of other technical solutions to the problem of anonymous gun crime, that would have no effect on the right to keep and bear arms. I strongly suspect that most gun nuts would welcome a chance to make crime easier to prosecute- it's a shame that they've been snookered into believing that "crime" is equal to an imaginary "right of revolution".
What Liberals should do- regardless of where they fall on the issue of the 2nd- is what they do best: propose social solutions to social problems. It's legislation, and policy, that will preserve the rights of all Americans, and protect all Americans from crime. Hopefully they will, and avoid the creeping teabaggism that's built from false equivalencies and fabricated rights.