> if so many gun owners really do support sensible gun control laws

Would you be willing to outline what you count as sensible gun control laws and what you hope to accomplish with these gun laws?

First off, legalizing CDC research into gun violence seems like a reasonable step

The CDC was never explicitly banned from researching gun violence, though the Dickey Amendment "outlawed spending tax dollars on gun control advocacy", which made it difficult to determine what sorts of research might be allowed. This was recently clarified to explicitly allow gun violence research, though that still isn't funded.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...

I think that would be a great first step. For it to be acceptable it will need to be very careful to ensure the privacy of gun owners.

While I’m all for unbiased, scientific research on gun violence, I have little confidence that it won’t just become the liberal’s version of climate change denial.

Look at Germany’s gun laws. Way saber than the USA.

Not German, can you explain what Germany's laws are and how it makes them safer than the USA?

Storage laws are super strict, police can and do come in your house to check that you have your gun in your safe. You aren’t supposed to lose it, or let anyone else get ahold of it. Psych evaluation required for those under 25 (to cut down on school shootings), more restrictions on fuller background checks and so on.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany

I would be for (and think it could pass) psych evals for those under 25 if we paired it with allowing anyone over 18 who passed to buy guns.

We could do better on background checks but the devil is in the details.

There is no way police checking storage at any time would pass at the federal level and I am doubtful it would have a noticeable effect on gun deaths but I could be convinced otherwise.

We already allow anyone over 18 to buy guns, without the psych evals.

> There is no way police checking storage at any time would pass at the federal level and I am doubtful it would have a noticeable effect on gun deaths but I could be convinced otherwise.

German statistics say otherwise. I love how pro-gun arguments are always "Ya it worked in country X, but it wouldn't work in the USA because we are third world" or something like that.

There is currently a restriction for selling handguns to people under 21.

>German statistics say otherwise.

I completely believe that the totality of German gun laws help reduce gun deaths. What I am specifically unsure of is how police checks of storage influence gun deaths. My initial assumption is that they would cause a <1% reduction in gun deaths but I don't have any data backing up that assumption so I could be persuaded that it would have a larger effect.

One of the common argument of the pro-gun crowd is that gun control doesn't work because criminals who would fail background checks still manage to get guns...e.g. they get them from friends or they still them from houses. Or to say "the criminals will easily get guns, while those law abiding citizens will find it hard time getting guns to protect themselves."

Gun storage laws (and smart gun laws if the NRA would allow them) are designed specifically to address that.

If gun storage laws only lead to a 1% reduction in gun deaths, (mostly via suicide via dad's gun), then they are totally worth it. I'm sure the effectiveness is a bit higher than that.

Police busting in your home to check anything is dead on arrival. They need a warrant and probable cause. Not happening. The other stuff is good.

They don't bust in, you have given them permission already. This is like signing a contract with a bails bondsman, they can enter your house and you can't sue them for trespassing.

This is what sane gun laws look like in developed countries.

> It probably doesn't mean what I think, either, yet we're all still perfectly capable of understanding GP's point

The 1994 assault weapons ban implemented by gun control advocates defines it as a gun with a bayonet mount on it (among other cosmetic definitions that it used).

So going by that definition, I would be curious as to why the OP wants to ban bayonet mounts.

Perhaps that is unfair but that is the literal definition that gun control advocates used!

Lets say the OP is instead talking about semi automatic weapons as at least rate of fire is a quality that a reasonable person could identify as being dangerous.

If they are talking about that, we'll then I'd like to point out that basically all weapons are semi automatic.

So that means that the OP either wants to ban bayonet mounts or wants to ban almost all guns.

Both of these positions I'd regard as ridiculous.