Short answer: It depends on what outcome you want to prioritize—reducing suicides and everyday shootings, preventing mass shootings, avoiding discriminatory enforcement, or minimizing burdens on lawful owners. Within those tradeoffs, there are regulations with solid evidence of benefit that still preserve an individual right to own guns, and others where the benefits or legality are more contested.
What the evidence tends to support
•Universal background checks that cover private sales reduce prohibited buyers’ access and are broadly popular; they align with longstanding bans on possession by felons and certain high‑risk individuals.
•Permit-to-purchase or licensing with objective criteria (fingerprints, background check, safety training) is associated with lower firearm homicide and suicide; effects appear stronger than background checks alone.
•Waiting periods of a few days reduce impulsive violence and suicides.
•Extreme risk protection orders (“red flag” laws) can temporarily disarm individuals who pose an imminent risk, with due-process hearings; early research suggests reductions in suicide and potential prevention of planned attacks.
•Safe-storage and child-access-prevention laws reduce unintentional shootings and youth suicides; offering tax credits or free lockboxes improves uptake.
•Domestic-violence restrictions and enforcement (including relinquishment protocols) reduce intimate-partner homicide risk.
•Targeting gun trafficking and “straw purchasing,” better tracing, and requiring serialization of unfinished frames curb illegal supply without broadly burdening lawful owners.
What’s more contested or higher‑risk legally/politically
•“Assault‑weapon” bans and magazine capacity limits: research on overall violence reduction is mixed; they may affect casualty counts in rare mass shootings but are frequently litigated.
•Broad expansions of “sensitive places” where carry is banned, or subjective “may-issue” permitting: vulnerable under recent Supreme Court standards.
•Comprehensive registries: raise privacy and misuse concerns; benefits vs. costs debated.
Constitutional guardrails to keep in mind (United States)
•The Supreme Court recognizes an individual right to keep and bear arms but also allows regulations with historical analogues (e.g., prohibiting certain dangerous persons, rules for public carry, sensitive places). New laws that mirror longstanding practices and include clear, objective criteria and due process are more likely to stand.
Equity and implementation considerations
•Avoid discretionary systems that can enable unequal treatment; rely on objective, check‑the‑box criteria.
•Pair enforcement with civil-rights safeguards and data transparency to monitor disparate impacts.
•Emphasize prevention (storage, suicide risk, DV) so the burden doesn’t fall mainly on street‑level policing.
•Invest in nonregulatory strategies with strong evidence, like community violence intervention and hospital‑based programs.
If you want a balanced package that respects ownership while reducing harm, a pragmatic approach could include:
•Universal background checks for all sales and a crackdown on straw purchasing.
•Permit-to-purchase or shall‑issue licensing with safety training and live‑fire proficiency; fast, affordable processing.
•A 3–10 day waiting period for first-time buyers.
•Extreme risk protection orders with rapid, adversarial hearings and penalties for misuse.
•Safe-storage/child‑access‑prevention requirements plus tax credits or free lock distribution.
•Strong domestic‑violence relinquishment and notification protocols.
•Mandatory reporting of lost/stolen guns within 48–72 hours.
•Funding for community violence intervention, suicide prevention, and storage outreach.
Bottom line: Yes—there’s a case for “more regulation” if it’s narrow, evidence‑based, and procedurally fair. If your top priority is minimizing government burden, focus on enforcing existing prohibitions, safe-storage incentives, and due‑process‑rich ERPOs rather than broad bans.
If you share your priority (e.g., reduce suicides, reduce mass shootings, keep government out, minimize discrimination), I can tailor a concrete policy set—and its likely legal durability—to that goal.