Not sure why you're concentrating so much on the news orgs. Fact is someone opened fire in a mall. Doesn't really matter if he killed anyone or not, or if he was using an assault rifle or a pistol - fact is we have a gun issue in America and we're doing nothing about it because the small minority of gun owners (most of which are law abiding) think that changing some policies using common sense legislation means that they aren't going to be able to get their guns and/or keep their guns. That's only true if you live in lala land with Fox News and Karl Rove, et al. In the meantime we're going to continue to hear stories like these.
I've got no problem with common sense policies that would actually stop things like this. I wouldn't even mind improving the background checks so they catch people like the Navy gunman. The problem is I haven't heard any common sense things that would work. I've heard things like, "No pistol grips!", "No magazines bigger than 10 rounds!", "No barrel shrouds!", "Nobody needs to use a 5.56mm round!", "No collapse-able butt-stocks!"
1) A 5.56mm round is technically "medium power", it's basically a .22 lr travelling at 3,000 fps and starts to break up as soon as it impacts a target. There are tons of cartridges that are much more powerful. I've got an old wooden bolt action that fires a projectile 3x the weight of a 5.56mm at the same velocity, and would go completely through the engine block of a car and still be able to kill when it came out the other side. People just like to demonize that caliber because it's the most commonly used one in AR-15 platform rifles.
2) Pistol grips are just a cosmetic/comfort feature. Anybody who has ever actually touched a gun knows that it has no impact on how fast you can fire. Your finger moves no faster when your hand is wrapped around a pistol grip.
3) Magazine size limitations are just silly. Any redneck knows how to tape two 10 rounders together to make switching mags faster.
4) Barrel shrouds don't "do" anything as far as functionality. On an AR-15 they protect the gas tube from getting bent when you're carrying it, and protect your hands from getting burned if the barrel gets hot. If they're talking about "foregrips", I bought and tried to use one on my AR-15 and found it to be more awkward than useful, and took it back off, so I don't understand what about having a foregrip makes the weapon more or less deadly.
5) Collapse-able butt-stocks are a comfort feature. For example if my wife wants to fire my rifle, she can collapse the stock so she can actually reach the pistol grip. There are already laws in place regulating how short your barrel can be, how short the over-all weapon can be and more. If you want a barrel less than 16" and you're not military, and you want to keep a stock on it, you have to fill out a bunch of paperwork with the ATF, pay a couple hundred dollars for a tax stamp, hope you get approved, etc. If people choose to ignore these laws by taking a hacksaw to the barrel and calling it a day, do you really think they're going to pay attention to any new laws?
Things I'd like to see that I think might actually work.
- Send a SWAT team into some of the crime ridden areas of places like Detroit and Chicago and exterminate gangsters on sight. Black, white, asian, hispanic, I don't care if they're blue, if they are known gang members, taze their ass, arrest them and keep them in prison for life; if they shoot at you for no reason, waste em'. They think they own all the "hood" areas, and I think it's time some cops or soldiers with a pair of testicles went in there and cleaned those places out so the hard-working people who used to make things and earn money and build bright futures can move back in and have a normal life.
- Require reporting of violent tendencies or unusual levels of paranoia to appropriate authorities. For example, if you go into your shrink and tell her you think the government is using microwaves to control your mind, she should be required by law to report that so you can't buy a gun from a licensed dealer. At least make you go find some billy gangsta badass who has one that might jam up on you because it hasn't been taken care of.
- Streamline the communication process between various agencies. It doesn't matter if the FBI doesn't directly respond to you shooting out somebody's tires, they should be notified. The ball shouldn't get dropped because somebody didn't think it was a big deal.
- Require some reasonable method of securing your weapons in your home. If you leave your house, your rifle shouldn't be stood up in your closet. I'm not saying drop $500 or more on a safe that would break down the back of my pickup truck, but there should be some kind of locking mechanism between home invaders and your guns if you aren't home. Not saying that will stop them, I mean they already broke into your house, but it might slow them down and it just might stop one or two people from dying at the hands of a stolen weapon.
- Require firearms training, or at least a demonstration of competence, upon purchase of first gun. There are too many people who, although not criminal, shoot themselves or somebody else on accident out of negligence because they weren't properly trained. When you buy your first gun, you should be legally required to at least demonstrate a certain level of competence. Dis-assemble the weapon you bought, re-assemble it, fire it at a target at 20 feet to make sure you can hit the broad side of a barn, and memorize some basic rules of gun safety like, "Be sure of your target and what is beyond", etc.
I could go on and on, but I've camped here for too long, so I'm gonna get some sleep.