Short answer: It depends on your goals and tolerance for tradeoffs. In the U.S., there are ways to tighten regulation that have evidence of reducing harm while preserving core rights—but each comes with costs and legal constraints.
How to think about it
•Objectives to balance: reduce homicide, suicide, and accidents; protect lawful self‑defense and sport; ensure fairness in enforcement; and comply with the Second Amendment.
•Reality check: Roughly half of U.S. gun deaths are suicides; homicides make up most of the rest. Policies that slow impulsive acts and keep guns from clearly high‑risk people tend to show the strongest effects.
What “more heavily regulated” can mean (and what the research generally suggests)
•Universal background checks for all sales: Widely popular; effects are mixed if adopted alone, stronger when paired with licensing.
•Permit-to-purchase/licensing with fingerprinting and safety training (shall‑issue, objective criteria): Associated in multiple studies with lower firearm homicide and suicide; adds cost and time for buyers.
•Waiting periods (e.g., 3–7 days): Linked to fewer suicides and some reductions in shootings; delays lawful purchases.
•Safe‑storage/child‑access prevention laws: Reduce unintentional shootings and youth suicide; require enforcement and public education; subsidies for safes help.
•Extreme risk protection orders (red‑flag laws) with due process: Targeted tool to temporarily remove guns from people posing imminent risk; promising on suicide prevention; needs careful guardrails to prevent misuse.
•Stronger enforcement against straw purchasing and trafficking, better data reporting to NICS: Focuses on criminal supply without broadly burdening owners.
•Age limits for certain firearms and domestic‑violence prohibitions: Can reduce risk in high‑risk groups; enforcement must be even‑handed.
Legal landscape to keep in mind (very high level)
•The Supreme Court protects an individual right to possess firearms for self‑defense but allows many “shall‑issue” licensing rules, sensitive‑place restrictions, and disarming of dangerous individuals. Discretionary “may‑issue” regimes are disfavored; bans on specific weapons or magazines are being actively litigated. Any proposal must fit today’s text‑and‑history test.
Key tradeoffs
•Benefits: Lower suicide and accidental shootings; potential reductions in violent crime; clearer rules for prohibited persons.
•Costs/risks: Burdens on law‑abiding owners (fees, time, delays), risk of unequal or overly aggressive enforcement, black‑market substitution, and litigation uncertainty for some measures.
A pragmatic, court‑resilient package that balances rights and safety
•Universal background checks tied to a shall‑issue licensing system with training and fingerprinting.
•Short waiting period for purchases.
•Safe‑storage/child‑access laws plus subsidies for safes and lockboxes.
•Extreme risk protection orders with strong due‑process protections and penalties for false petitions.
•Better NICS data, and tougher action on straw purchasing and trafficking.
•Pair regulations with nonregulatory strategies: community‑violence intervention, focused deterrence, and suicide prevention.
If you’re skeptical of adding regulations, the most defensible alternatives are: tighter enforcement of existing laws, targeted policing of hot spots, funding CVI programs, widespread safe‑storage campaigns, and voluntary training.
If you share your priorities (e.g., reducing suicide vs. violent crime, minimizing burden on owners, legal risk tolerance) and your state, I can tailor a more specific set of options.