Gun Control & RKBA

If you buy a car, it's assumed you will drive it, which is a dangerous activity, and there are laws about when, where and how you will drive it. There are laws about who can drive a car and who can't. Police spend a lot of time enforcing these laws. If you keep your car in your garage, then there is no danger, and so you don't need a license.

A car is difficult to conceal. If didn't intend to drive your car when you bought it, but drove it anyway without license plates, the police are likely to catch you. If you are also drunk and don't have a driver's license, they will arrest you. You may go to jail. You may be restricted from getting a license in the future.

Most of this regulation is at the state level, and that seems to be adequate because all states have similar laws and enforcement is fairly uniform. However, if you did, say lose your license due to DUI in one state, there is a national database that will prevent you from getting a license in another state.

Regarding guns, if you buy a gun, it is assumed you will shoot it, which is a dangerous activity, even if you only did it in your own home. People have shot themselves or others by mistake or on purpose in their homes. People have shot through walls and killed their neighbors. People have shot visitors to their home. Visitors have shot their hosts. Children have played with guns and shot themselves or their parents. Children have shot visiting children. There is a risk with having a gun in your home that is much greater (such as it is) than keeping a car in your garage.

Also, guns are easy to conceal. If you did decide to take it out of your home, it is much less likely the police will catch you, than if you drove a car without license plates. If you wanted to commit a crime with your gun, it is much easier to dispose of or hide the gun than it would be with a car. It's much easier to take that gun across state lines and violate laws in other states. So it follows from this, that there should be laws about who can have a gun and when, where and how you can use it. If you commit gun crimes in one state, you should not be able to go to another state, buy another gun and commit the same crime. Also, gun laws vary greatly from state to state, much more so than for cars. Some sort of national framework is necessary, even if it is limited to a background check to make sure you didn't commit a gun crime in another state.

There is one, and only one case I can think of in which you might buy a gun and I would not assume you intend to shoot it, and therefore create potential danger to your family, friends, neighbors or enemies. That would be if you didn't buy any bullets. So from a theoretical perspective at all, I'd be okay if we didn't regulate guns at all, but only regulated bullets. But I don't think that would satisfy you at all and probably would be harder to enforce.