Thanks for your very considered reply. Got my licence over 30 years ago, and just to share my perspective after seeing many changes over the years:

> I know a lot of people say that licensing makes a lot of sense, and on the face of it, of course I agree. But if you look deeper you can see how it becomes a bridge to making a constitutional right to something for only English speaking, upper middle class or rich people (generally white or Asian demographically) people.

Not sure why it would be any different from a car licence?

> I don't have an issue with competency tests, but what is the bar and for what purpose? I only hunt and to get a hunting license I had to take a hunting class which includes a gun safety pertion. Does that count? Also, I'm the son of a Vietnam vet and have literally been shooting since I was 7 years old. I understand defensive shooting and can shoot revolvers and semi auto pistols, but I don't particularly care for pistol shooting. Do I also have to get certified for defensive shooting separately for a different class of gun? What's the definition? I can hunt with semi autos. AR-15's are a style of rifle, but functionally they're just a semi-auto with a pistol grip. They're fine to hunt with and you can get them chambered in a lot of rounds. If I get everything the same but without the pistol grip, can I have it not qualified as an AR-15 and not have to license it as such? Do we care about semi auto shotguns? They seem to miss a lot of the press.

I'll fall back on how it works in my country, where we have no guaranteed right of self-defense. Instead owning a gun is a privilege and you must prove you are capable of owning one responsibly. As such, there aren't a whole heap of different usages. The basic licence test covers hunting, target shooting, safe storage etc. and all the common things you would need a gun for. I can agree if you were allowed to carry a pistol for self-defense that would probably require a different licence class due to the increased risk and involvement of other people.

> Many of the states right now don't have a requirement for having your guns to be registered. How do we move forward with that? Are those guns now just illegal, is there a grace period or do all guns going forward have to be registered or are we going to do a "buy back" program for all unregistered guns, where the government buys back your unregistered gun far below a reasonable price before it becomes illegal?

Buybacks have been used in UK, NZ and Australia (at least) and have worked well, despite the sums of money involved. As far as I know they've used something like fair market value, though of course there have been complaints, particularly from people with e.g. rare models that are hard to value.

> America, as it is, is 50 states with 50 sets of gun laws and -to make it worse - 50 sets of definitions of what each classification of a gun is. Not every state even defines an assault rifle the same. I think only 3 or 4 define it the same, not to mention the federal definitions. Top to bottom, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and so we don't even know who would do the licensing... state or federal. And, even if they could figure that out, there's a very good chance it would get knocked out by the Supreme Court on multiple grounds... not the least of which is unlawful discrimination.

Yeah, I appreciate the problems. There are always people who love to look for loopholes, e.g. what about an AR-15 chambered for .22? I would say the test case is simply how dangerous is the weapon. Can it be used to kill many people very quickly? A AR-15 in 5.56 is far more dangerous that in .22. A semi-auto is more dangerous than a bolt action. A gun with a magazine of 30 bullets is more dangerous that one with 8. etc. etc. Not easy decisions, but a framework of danger to the community can be used to identify weapons that should have more restrictions.

I say this like I'm anti all control, and I don't mean to be. I have a concealed carry, even though I don't. I don't really have a problem with licensing, per se. The concealed carry saves with hassle if I take rifles to the range and they're in a bag and I have a hand gun in there or something. Plus, it just doesn't bother me. I just want to let you know, there are things to think about and A LOT of people who don't shoot and have never shot wouldn't think about. It's never just that simple.

Appreciate your thoughts.