Short answer: It depends on your goals and how you weigh public safety, individual rights, and enforcement costs. If the aim is to reduce suicides and everyday gun violence while minimally burdening lawful owners, a targeted increase in regulation is defensible. Broad bans are more contested on both evidence and constitutional grounds.
What “more heavily regulated” could mean (with relatively strong case-cost balance)
•Universal background checks for all sales/transfers, with timely reporting of prohibiting records.
•Permit-to-purchase or licensing with safety training and a brief waiting period (“cooling off”).
•Extreme Risk Protection Orders (red-flag laws) with clear due‑process safeguards.
•Safe-storage/child‑access prevention rules and tax credits/loans for secure storage.
•Stronger domestic-violence and stalking prohibitions and consistent enforcement.
•Trafficking deterrence: better tracing, penalties for straw purchases, and focused deterrence on repeat violent offenders.
•Investment in suicide prevention and community violence intervention alongside policing.
Measures with larger trade‑offs or legal uncertainty
•Bans or tight restrictions on certain semiautomatic rifles and large-capacity magazines: may reduce mass‑shooting lethality but effects on overall gun deaths are less clear; faces significant constitutional challenges.
•Broad carry restrictions beyond sensitive places: courts are actively reshaping the limits.
•Technology mandates (e.g., microstamping, smart guns): promising but not yet mature at scale.
If you prefer minimal new regulation
•Keep current ownership rules but improve enforcement against illegal possession by violent offenders, expand mental‑health and suicide services, bolster community‑based violence interruption, and increase safe‑storage education.
How to decide
•Clarify goals: reduce suicides? everyday homicides? mass shootings? accidents? inequities in enforcement?
•Apply criteria: effectiveness (best evidence), rights impact, feasibility/cost, equity (avoid disproportionate enforcement), and constitutional durability.
•Build in transparency: publish metrics (fatalities by type, “time‑to‑crime,” ERPO outcomes, defensive‑use reports, and enforcement equity), include sunset/review clauses, and adjust based on results.
My take: For most U.S. jurisdictions, a targeted package—universal background checks, licensing with training and short waiting periods, ERPOs with due process, safe‑storage/child‑access rules, and stronger anti‑trafficking—offers meaningful safety gains with modest burdens on responsible owners. Broader bans are a harder call and should be weighed against local conditions, evidence, and current court rulings.
If you share your top priorities (e.g., “suicides” vs “mass shootings”), I can tailor a concrete policy set and implementation plan.