What if instead of a gun-owner-registry, there were a national gun-registry? [View all]

http://europe.newsweek.com/gun-control-where-criminals-get-weapons-412850?rm=eu
via
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/8/1467272/-Abbreviated-pundit-roundup-A-national-crisis-like-this-demands-a-national-response

A national survey of inmates of state prisons found that just 10 percent of youthful (age 18-40) male respondents who admitted to having a gun at the time of their arrest had obtained it from a gun store. The other 90 percent obtained them through a variety of off-the-book means: for example, as gifts or sharing arrangements with fellow gang members. [...] If a gun ends up in criminal use, it is usually after several more transactions. The average age of guns taken from Chicago gangs is over 11 years.

The gun at that point has been diverted from legal commerce. In this respect, the supply chain for guns is similar to the supply chain for other products that have a large legal market but are subject to diversion.

In the case of guns, diversion from licit possession and exchange can occur in a variety of ways: theft, purchase at a gun show by an interstate trafficker, private sales where no questions are asked, straw purchases by girlfriends and so forth.


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My proposal:
("Gun-owner" refers to any type and form of gun-producer, gun-seller and gun-owning citizen.)

1. Every gun must be registered in a national database. For each gun there's a file that lists the current owner and all the former owners and when it changed hands.

2. Not informing the gun-registry who's the current owner of the gun is a crime.

3. Gun-owners would have to prove once a year that they still own the guns registered on their names. Failure to produce all the guns on demand is a crime and you get charged with arms-trafficking.

4. Possession of an unregistered gun is a crime.



If you sell a gun to someone, you both have to inform the registry who's the new owner.
If you gift a gun to someone, you both have to inform the registry who's the new owner.
If you lend/lease your gun to someone, you are on the hook as a co-perpetrator for all the crimes committed with the gun because you are still the legal owner of the gun.
If a gun gets stolen, you have to inform the registry within 7 days of the act or you get charged with arms-trafficking.



Checking once a week whether all your guns are still there and proving to the authorities once a year that they are still in the hands of a law-abiding citizen.

That should make it harder to make a gun "disappear" and end up in the hands of criminals.