(Warning: An explosive topic. Those who only want to talk robocars, you can subscribe to only that feed if you wish to!)

Every mass shooting triggers more gun regulation debate. Coming from Canada, I know that gun control, particularly of handguns, in place for several decades, can result in a less violent society, and much less gun violent one, with much less suicide. But Canada does not have the 2nd amendment, and frankly that amendment makes most proposals for gun regulation a non-starter. Sure, there's lots of argument about what the well-regulated militia clause means, but on the whole the existence of the 2nd amendment makes most proposals wishful thinking.

Politically, repeal or reduction of the 2nd amendment seems very unlikely. So I came up with a proposal that, while also pretty unlikely, has just the ghost of a chance.

The proposal is to distribute the control of gun rights to the states, rather than mandating it at the federal level. This would mean that states who wished to, could write their own version of the 2nd amendment, making it more protective, as might be the case in gun-rights states, or weaker, as might be the case in the "blue" states.

This has the slight potential of success because it is a trade. States and members of congress who would never approve a reduction of the 2nd amendment might take a deal of the form, "You gun-hating liberals keep your hands off our guns in our states and you can do what you want in your states." Maybe.

The rule, would say:

A state may elect to amend its constitution to substitute its own rule regarding the right of the people to keep and bear arms within that state, superseding the 2nd amendment of the constitution of the United States therein.

A state which did nothing would retain the 2nd amendment and its jurisprudence. A state could also make a new rule removing the militia clause or assuring the right even to machine guns if it wished. And a state could make a rule allowing it to enact gun control similar to the UK or Canada.

The federal government would still control interstate commerce in arms, subject to the existing 2nd amendment which would not change in its application to federal law. It is possible one could also argue a right of the federal government on any weapon which can fire outside the state (rockets, etc.)

Would this work? In spite of the 2nd amendment, there is actually quite a bit of gun regulation in place in many states. Of course, these are all rules that managed to survive 2nd amendment scrutiny and which use approaches agreed to even by the gun rights advocates in their states. So it may be that offering a way out of them is not much of an offer. Only time would tell.

Of course, any time this topic comes up, the debate is often taken over by debate on guns or whether gun control is a good or bad idea, and this debate gets ugly. I want to avoid that, and focus only on the question of whether it makes sense as a state right instead of a federal one. This will bring up the question of how well gun regulation can work in one state if anybody can travel to a low-regulation state and purchase weapons and bring them back (illegally or legally.) States don't have borders with customs the way the USA and Canada have. However, if the purpose of gun regulation is not to imagine it can keep guns out of the hands of criminals, but rather just to lower overall gun density, this can be workable.