It depends on what the purpose of the discussion is supposed to be. If it’s to congratulate the OP on his “reasonableness” and willingness to make compromises compared to more rabid gun owners, then fine, I endorse that. I appreciate the good intentions.
But I think the point that some of us are making, especially those of us with experience of gun regulation in other countries, is what gun control that is truly effective has to look like, so that it would reduce the outrageous epidemic of American gun violence to something more in line with the rest of the civilized world. Most such countries, for instance, have extremely strict requirements on the possession of any handgun and many types of long guns, such that very few people are allowed to possess them; these countries also have very strict laws on the transportation of any gun. Any kind of open or concealed carry of the type widely practiced in the US in most circumstances would immediately get you arrested.
I concede that in the present climate very few gun owners would accept this degree of gun regulation, but that this is what it would take is a point worth making. For some perspective, as I mentioned a couple of days ago in another thread, the US just experienced the 239th mass shooting this year, in 155 days. Two days later those figures are already outdated, Most other countries had exactly zero mass shootings during the same time period.
Now if the US enacted some of the OP’s proposals and rigidly enforced them, it might optimistically reduce the number of mass shootings and overall gun death rates by, say, 35%. That would still mean more than one mass shooting on average every single day, and many of them would be school shootings, not to mention the continuing carnage of ordinary one-on-one homicides.
Compared to the rest of the civilized world, a 35% reduction would still be a rate of gun deaths that is off the chart. Is that good enough? Does anyone believe that weak half-measures that gun owners would be happy with would actually reduce US gun deaths to the rates of the rest of the civilized world?
That’s all I have to say on the matter. Gun control advocates who favour much stronger regulation than typical gun owners are willing to accept are not the unreasonable ones; they’re the realists in the room who understand what meaningful gun control looks like. Those advocating things like mental health checks or age restrictions are simply avoiding the real problem and deluding themselves into believing in a magical panacea that will still let them play with their guns as much as they feel like. As I’ve said before, every “responsible law-abiding gun owner” is responsible and law-abiding until he isn’t. It’s the nature of the human condition.