here are the things i've thought of so far while agonizing over how to enact positive change without too overtly stepping on constitutional and privacy toes First and foremost: education education education. widely available, free to take, easy to access but never mandatory as a requirement to gun ownership or CHL. web, in class sessions, print, whatever. education should range from the basics of gun safety. how to secure the gun, and what signs to look for in people in your household or anyone that visits your home regularly that may have mental illness symptoms that might lead to violence, possibly with your gun(s). 2nd: making NICS available for use for private sales, but not making it mandatory. to do a background check, you would need a randomized set of chunks and pieces of the buyer's info (part of a street name, part of a SSN, part of a birthday, etc). It would be as simple as going to a website, plugging in the info on the buyer that you would need from them. data would automatically be obliterated upon approval or after the set time period for "delay" responses. 3rd: incentives for people to buy a safe of some kind. this one hurts me in the financially conservative jimmies, but it could be tax credits, rebates, whatever. i think this could encourage people to buy and use the safe. 4th: anally gaping senator feinstein. no lube. no formalities. just plain hilt deep anal sinkhole action.