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Children die in Texas. The country cries out with pain. Congress forms a group of senators to "study" the problem and NOTHING HAPPENS. Why? A report of the newly formed bipartisan group of Senators, led by Texas Senator John Cornyn and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy sounds like more of the same.
While "red flag" laws would be welcomed by families and mental health professionals alike, they alone will not keep guns from those who want them. The unintended consequence of these laws if not written properly might be to deny persons with mild mental illness the "constitutional right" to have a gun. The law will need to make some judgements about what constitutes a "danger to self or others", the standard for an involuntary commitment to a mental health hospital. A required "universal background check" seems to be a provision that even NRA members can support since a murderer with a gun gives every gun owner a bad name. Again, these will need to be nationwide and the giant "gun show" loophole will need to be closed or the whole exercise will be for naught.
The obvious part of the conversation that is being ignored is the proliferation of "weapons of war" such as the AR-15 used in the Texas school shooting. For some reason a country that permits individuals to be banned from driving a vehicle unless they have reached a certain age, have taken a written and performance test and registered with the government; cannot seem to apply the same standard to gun ownership.
Furthermore, most of us with a driver's license are not trained, licensed nor have any reason to drive a 18 wheel tractor trailer or a commercial bus, for example. These require additional training and license as a CDL operator. Nothing will change regarding guns in the United States until the country accepts that not every gun is equal and that a graduated system of gun ownership with restrictions in place will protect not only the public but gun owners as well.