Notably with the drivers-license example is that it is really hard to not get a drivers-license. It is more a certificate of 'I am capable of passing a drivers-test' than an license that you are mentally fit to drive a car. As such, it is very rare and almost a punishment to lose / not get a drivers license.

If we would get something similar with firearms licenses, there would probably still be too many firearms to help stop the glut of firearms.

If all gun owners could at least pass "I am capable of passing a firearm safety test" then world would be a better place. Think of just how many children die each year because their parents don't know how to store a firearm safely. Same goes for spree shooters if they had to first go through licensing program their obvious mental health issues could be noticed before they execute on their plan.

Just because gun license wouldn't solve every single edge case doesn't make it a bad idea.

>If we would get something similar with firearms licenses, there would probably still be too many firearms to help stop the glut of firearms.

A tax and mandatory insurance for gun ownership could also be imposed like with cars. This would mean that people with licenses wouldn't want to deal guns to unlicensed people because they would still have to pay for the insurance and tax on every firearm they own.

Even if current gun owners were grandfathered in this would at least slowdown new gun ownership and obviously inherited guns would follow the new scheme.

This is federally mandated in Canada -- the PAL. Don't even have to be a resident to apply and get one, just pass the test and have somewhere in Canada to have it mailed.

How to load, clear, hold a gun; familiarity with different types of gun and ammo; laws and regs. I still see people doing dumb shit at the range, but generally less than when I lived in the US.

By law you don't need a PAL to get ammo or parts, but most stores around here (I'm in AB) require it for any sort of gun-related purchase.

>Why this doesn't apply to guns is beyond me.

Because people aren't concerned that in a decade or three, politicians are going to use the registry of motor vehicle licenses to help them in confiscating motor vehicles from normal people who want to keep them around in order to protect their families.

Which is of course irrational; motor vehicle licensure is far more powerfully coercive and has more public policy goals than firearms licensure.

The political psychology point is well taken, of course; the problem with all gun control proposals in the US is that they're perceived, with some validity, to be a slippery slope towards universal confiscation, the same way abortion regulation is perceived as a slippery slope to a universal ban.

But in the airless vacuum of a message board we should be able to discuss the proposals on their merits without being chained to partisan political analyses.

By suggesting their concerns are irrational, are you saying you think it's more likely that registries of vehicle licenses are going to be used to perform vehicle confiscations than that registries of firearm licenses are going to be used to perform firearm confiscations?

Yes. (Substituting "restrictions" for "confiscations", of course).

That's quite a substitution you've made there.

I don't agree. Suspending or revoking someone's driver's license is as coercive as the government needs to be, and state governments has already applied that power for non-driving purposes. "Confiscation" of firearms is wholly unrealistic; what would actually happen is that discovery of unlicensed firearms on private property (for instance, when responding to a police report) would become a criminal matter, just as driving without a valid license matters only when you get pulled over for something else.

But my broader point is just common sense: people are far more dependent on cars than on firearms; regulating access to driving privileges offers governments more tools than access to firearms does.

>what would actually happen is that discovery of unlicensed firearms on private property (for instance, when responding to a police report) would become a criminal matter

And do you think they're going to poke their noses equally around homes belonging to known gun owners as they do those of non gun owners?

>people are far more dependent on cars than on firearms

Sure, but some people benefit a lot more from the proliferation of firearms than other people do, and the people who are harmed by the proliferation of firearms have a much stronger motivation to remove them than do people that are harmed by the proliferation of cars.

No one is really concerned that the government is going to stop people from being able to drive cars without a viable alternative that works for the vast majority. There is concern that the government is going to stop normal people from owning guns, eventually. They don't need to confiscate them to do that, they just need to institute mandatory background checks so it's illegal to hand your guns down to your kids without government permission, and gradually make it more difficult to get a license, and then legal gun owners die off and all there are left are the lawbreakers.

If you really are concerned then why would things be different without the registry?

Unless you bought you gun and ammunition using cash there already is a paper trail leading straight to you.

If there are no mandatory background checks, then it's legal to buy/sell your guns without a paper trail. It is legally possible to have guns that the government doesn't know about, or to dispose of them without the government knowing about that.

That makes a registry of limited value. If they ban a gun you own, and they come looking for yours because it was in the registry, you can say "I don't have it any more", and that will not be a confession to a crime that is punishable by jail time and a lifetime ban on gun ownership.

In principle, I agree, but in the US, a blanket requirement for licensure of all firearms is unconstitutional. It is, on the other hand, unclear that licensure of tactical rifles would be.