GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT GUN CONTROL...

Scenes of the aftermath of the carnage in Las Vegas where 58 were murdered and 500 injured in 2017 in America's worst mass shooting- so far.

On the subject of gun control, here are some proposals to try to reduce the mayhem that Americans inflict on each other- and themselves, via suicide and accidents- with firearms:

* Complete background checks that require all gun sales or other transfers to be banned if the purchaser or recipient is a convicted felon or a person with any kind of court order prohibiting their possession of firearms.

* Red flag laws that allow private persons or law enforcement to seek a court order- which would allow the gun owner to have notice and a hearing- to prohibit a dangerous person from possessing firearms. These are routinely incorporated into conditions of a bond for release in criminal cases or civil cases where acts of domestic violence are alleged or in divorce cases where a spouse has a credible fear of harm.

* Gun licensing laws that require any prospective gun owner to take and pass a course in responsible gun safety, and which would require periodic renewals, the same as we do with motor vehicles.

* Banning "assault" type weapons, guns easily converted to automatic, and high capacity magazines. Gun aficionados claim that there is no such thing as an "assault weapon" and it can't be defined. Somehow, states managed to ban obscenity even without being able to accurately define it (former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it!")

* Banning high velocity, high kinetic energy ammunition, designed to penetrate bulletproof vests and designed to cause maximum damage to human beings. Of course, there is no legitimate reason to own or use such ammunition.

* Requiring gun manufacturers to put the same safety features on guns that exist on smart phones- codes or fingerprints to unlock them (this was a supposedly fictional feature on James Bond's gun in 2012's Skyfall, but there was a prototype in another Bond film in 1989, License to Kill).

* Removing all tort protection from gun manufacturers and sellers, and requiring them to create a fund to compensate without fault any person injured by a firearm- unless that person was committing a criminal act at the time and was not himself or herself the victim of a crime (i.e., it's not legal to shoot a 12 year old shoplifting).

* Eliminating all concealed carry laws for civilians (I've never understood the necessity of making this practice legal for civilians).

* Banning all civilians from carrying firearms at any public gathering, retail store, bar, church, or any commercial property unless the owner specifically consents, in writing, with that information posted where the public can be made aware.

* If we ever get really serious about eliminating the majority of firearm deaths, we will ban all handguns, require all ammunition manufactured or possessed to be reduced to non-lethal muzzle velocities and kinetic energy, and require that any possessor of a long gun (the only legal weapons) be a part of a well regulated militia that will drill on the town square or its equivalent every Saturday afternoon (Sundays for Orthodox Jews).