Do you care more about mass shootings or average day to day gun crime?
They have different sources (one, poor access to mental healthcare, the other, poverty) and probably need different solutions too. I personally dont care as much about mass shootings, because in the grand scheme of gun crimes, lots less die. Nevermind Suicide, which is just access to mental healthcare.
I'm really interested in making poor communities safer, and reducing the transactions in illegal guns - but tbh, thats like trying to bail out a rowboat with a thimble - and without dealing with the underlying causes of gun crime folks debating in this space are effectively arguing about what color a building ought to be, while its also actively on fire.
In the end, I think everyone who buys a gun should have to go thru the same process, and should undergo a background check, and that a fail dangerous system is bad - now how we go about fixing that issue? thats another question entirely.
I'm not sure how you think the remedy you're proposing -- "I think everyone who buys a gun should have to go thru the same process, and should undergo a background check, and that a fail dangerous system is bad" -- is actually connected to the problem you're trying to solve. Most of the supply of guns used in crime is stolen guns -- it's not guns purchased legally from private people.
Private people, although they have the right to do so, don't generally transfer guns directly to strangers, because of the possibility of criminal prosecution for transfer to a prohibited person.
There are some improvements we can make to NICS -- but they all have to do with making sure the data is actually there.
Keep in mind that, in the absence of data indicating a conviction, a person is just going to get cleared in a few minutes. NICS checks basically never take even an hour, let alone a day; the time limit of three days is there to prevent the relevant agencies from engaging in malicious delays.
You have to have time limits like that for most government procedures; and we can't presume, in the absence of evidence, that someone should be denied. You are suggesting we give up something fundamental and general -- the presumption of innocence -- when you argue that NICS should default to closed.
They have different sources (one, poor access to mental healthcare, the other, poverty) and probably need different solutions too. I personally dont care as much about mass shootings, because in the grand scheme of gun crimes, lots less die. Nevermind Suicide, which is just access to mental healthcare.
I'm really interested in making poor communities safer, and reducing the transactions in illegal guns - but tbh, thats like trying to bail out a rowboat with a thimble - and without dealing with the underlying causes of gun crime folks debating in this space are effectively arguing about what color a building ought to be, while its also actively on fire.
In the end, I think everyone who buys a gun should have to go thru the same process, and should undergo a background check, and that a fail dangerous system is bad - now how we go about fixing that issue? thats another question entirely.