It’s definitely a complicated issue. Finding a way to better record the movement of guns through both legal and illegal means is going to take a lot of discussion and compromise. The 1,500 traces that the ATF is asked to process each day are only complicated by private sales to unregistered owners, private gifts, stolen guns and black market sales.

I suspect that the answer is somewhere in a cultural shift around gun safety & training and through working with manufacturers on adding safety features to new guns. It’s a bit dated, but this report from the Dept. of Justice shows how big of an issue stolen and otherwise illegally owned guns are.

My greatest concern, and the real intent behind this piece, is the cultural freeze that has happened around the gun debate. Because of the tension on both sides of the issue, we refuse to entertain possible solutions or even discuss the problem.