We argued that point in a prior thread - San Jose CA gun tax law is a positive first step to rational gun ownership, and I still feel that boiling Gun laws to a city/county level makes for an excessive level of control as well as abuse. There’s going to be huge questions of jurisdiction, likely unconstitutional levels of restriction on travel, and a white elephant level of profiling abuse.
Having said that, I do agree that states self selecting based on the preferences of it’s citizens is probably the best solution, at least in a democratic nation, but will point out that the problem is the same as we have on a national level - we don’t always have a very representative government due to gerrymandering and it’s ilk. And the federal oversight (if in our current age of gridlock was even possible) is a very good idea, as individual states tend to go too far in both directions IMHO.
Okay, back to the OP. Since this thread ISN’T theoretically about gun control, but about possible hypocrisy in America’s cultural fascination about guns, I’d like to make three points -
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Forcing gun ownership on and and all is a terrifying thought, I really don’t want someone with a mandatory 4 hours of instruction in high school being forced to own a gun, and who then panics at sounds in the night and shoots their spouse/child/bystander at the door. But we have addressed this upthread.
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The second biggest issue (IMHO) with the gun culture in the US is that we glorify guns and violence without talking about consequences. I have lost track of the number of times where I’ve turned to someone after an action movie and make the point where everyone, including the ‘hero’ is going to jail for, well, forever, due to the people endangered, the lack of justification, and on and on and on. Most non-police action movies should end up with the ‘hero’ being arrested and dragged off to jail for a long, long interrogation and years of criminal and civil litigation. A mandatory trailing, perhaps in a government or social studies class talking seriously about the consequences of gun use, along with demystification of guns would be greatly welcome.
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Okay, on to our truest hypocrisy (again IMHO). Gun safety. We’ve had several threads on this as well (including @Czarcasm and my discussion in Gun owner's liability when it comes mishaps involving their children) . Claims are made for the safety brought to society by gun ownership, but we have a terrible, terrible record of making the people in our home safe from our own firearms. It’s only talked about during the (sadly frequent) circumstance of a home shooting. Note, I am not talking about suicides which is an entirely different great debate. Yes, no home security is perfect, and yes, most new firearms come with a basic lock, but we are still terrible at getting people to use them, and the more secure systems are often overpriced which contributes to the class/race issues mentioned earlier.
Regardless of the overreach that the OP suggests, I still think it’s useful for us to consider ways to address the cultural underpinnings of the gun debate, even if I don’t think we are likely to find a way to deal with it in a legislative manner given that bipartisanship has become a dirty word for roughly 40% of the nation. Changing people’s hearts and minds is going to be a long, LONG road, but may be ultimately successful.
And I say this as a gun owner, with a concealed carry permit, who looks askance at the open-carry yahoos that do this as a political statement.