Registration of all handguns.

[DanTex]

I support the president's gun control measures, but in order to really bring the levels of gun violence down anywhere near where the rest of the world is, it's going to take licensing and registration for all handguns.

Sadly, even though polls repeatedly show that a majority supports registration, it has no chance of passing congress. Still, it's a good idea to have some longer term goals as well as short term activism. We shouldn't not talk about progressive goals just because John Boehner is speaker of the house. The political right is very good at is hatching conservative ideas in think tanks and generating "buzz" about them even if most of the country is opposed (e.g. privatizing social security). Whereas here is an idea that most of the country is in favor, and it has no "buzz" at all.

From an activist point of view, one thing to do could be write letters both to the media and to members of congress, asking why registration of handguns isn't even being discussed, despite the fact that most Americans agree with it, and that it would do much more than anything currently being proposed to limit gun violence. Or just bring it up while having political discussions with friends and neighbors, just to point out that there's more we can do besides background checks and magazine capacity.

By the way, the reason nobody talks about registration is that gun fanatics fear that a gun registry will lead to gun confiscation, since it gives the government a list of all gun owners, which they can then use to go door-to-door. Of course, only a small fraction of gun owners are this paranoid, but in the gun debate, the looniest 1% right-wingers have outsized influence.