u235

As noted recently cars can kill lots of people in much the same manner as like guns. So the simple question: if all cars on the road need to be nationally registered (and possibly even insured) then why the heck not do the same thing for guns?

There is no national database of guns. Not of who owns them, how many are sold annually or even how many exist.

Federal law bars the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from keeping track of guns. The only time the government can track the history of a gun, including its first buyer and seller, is after it's used in a crime. And though President Barack Obama and numerous Democratic lawmakers have called for new limits on what kinds of guns should be available to the public and urged stronger background checks in gun sales, there is no effort afoot to change the way the government keeps track - or doesn't - of where the country's guns are.(AP)

Seems a bit of a double standard. Cars are traced by their VIN number from the moment they roll off the factory line. They are easily traceable, as are the technical owners. Get a ticket? They take your license and your registration. If you're driving a car you'd damn well better have both documents when they pull you over. Chances are they already ran your plate too, and found out all about you. Take your car to the shop? Try and sell it? Trade it? They'll find out everything that happened, who owned it and the last time insurance paid to have it fixed.

So... why the fuck aren't we doing even a fraction of that with guns?

Guns, like cars, have a fixed registration number. It should be easy to track in a national database. Who owned or owns a gun matters, and if it gets stolen, even more reason to have a registry to ensure that the wrong person doesn't get tagged for being responsible. There are also licenses, matching gun licenses or FIDs to guns should also be reasonable. Why not?

I think that putting aside the gun control argument for a while and just improving record management would be a solid step forward. It would also help trace the spread of legally owned weapons into the hands of criminals and make it faster to identify where guns used in crimes came from.

As for insurance, that might not be a bad idea either. But that's a different topic.