It always comes back to registration, which gun owners are understandably wary of considering how many states treat gun owners and guns.
So how MANY states do actually treat gun owners and guns in ways that make gun owners paranoid? I know California is always mentioned as the poster child for the stereotypical gun hating state, but most states seem to lean in the opposite direction.
How would a state need to treat gun owners to convince them that an electronic database of guns ownership is not the first step towards government seizure of firearms?
Well Washington DC is maybe the best example, and also happens to be where the politicians who make the laws all are (and is the murder capital of the country). California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York along with DC all have magazine size restrictions, and most of them ban "assault weapons" based on varying definitions of what that is. Some require excessive background checks, some don't issue concealed carry licenses even though they legally could.
For the second part of your question, it would take a lot more than we see right now. Currently we have members of congress throwing temper tantrums to get congress to vote the way they want. Every time a shooting happens, there is a national uproar from a lot of people about how we need to do this, that, and the other. We're compared with Australia, a country with less than 1/10th of our population and the same land mass where the data doesn't totally support their measures. Places like France where two separate mass shootings that together tripled the number in our most recent "worst ever" one occurred despite their very strict gun laws are ignored.
Personally, I'd have to be confident that there won't be an emotional outburst after a shooting happens. I'd also need to be confident that the people designing those laws put some sort of value on gun ownership that isn't an afterthought. Well researched ways that will solve our problems (with provisions to remove them if they don't work) while preserving our rights are fine. That's not what we ever get currently. There's a good reason the assault weapons ban in the 90's was allowed to expire, it didn't work. Yet still today there's a big push for repeating it because it emotionally feels like doing something productive. There's just an overwhelming urge to do something when you see a room full of bodies. It's understandable, because humans aren't wired to see the problems of 300 million people.
There has to be an acceptable number of gun deaths per year. The same as with car wrecks, child abuse, etc. We could all live in a crazy safe world if no one was allowed guns, and everyone constantly had cameras on them everywhere they went and could only drive 10mph. If you could achieve a 0% homicide/abuse rate in exchange for everyone constantly being monitored and driving 10mph, would you? Probably not. Yet there are many who hold that standard for gun violence, and will keep adding laws until the number hits 0, which it never will.
What happens if we allow registration, and another mass shooting happens (which it will)? I tell you what won't happen, the people who are pushing for registration now won't shrug their shoulders and say "Well, we got registration which helped, so this is probably far enough. Sometimes bad things just happen."
What you seem to be wanting is not a change in state policies so much as a change in public perception in regards to gun violence.
I think that some of the current emotions we are seeing is a backlash against a perceived helplessness or unwillingness of government and government officials to take any actions whatsoever in the wake of gun violence. I know that gun rights supporters deride the 'doing something for the sake of doing something' approach. However, 'doing nothing because there is nothing we can do' approach doesn't seem to be convincing anyone on the other side of the debate.
You asked what it'd take to convince me they're not looking to confiscation. That's what it would take.
After the recent Orlando shooting I can't count how many people on facebook and politicians pointed to Australia as the model for gun safety. Australia had a gun registry, and confiscated guns in 1996. Their gun violence rate was already lower than the U.S. and on a steep decline before the confiscation, but when the same decline continued after the confiscation everyone said "Look how great the confiscation worked!"
I'm not saying do nothing. I'm curious why the something we have to do always relates to restrictions on gun ownership. A kid in Austin a couple years back got drunk and drove a car through the bar district and killed 2 people and injured 23. Afterward I don't recall seeing anyone talk about instituting background checks for alcohol, quantity restrictions, or mandatory breathalyzers in every car. Why weren't there politicians tearfully telling the stories of the two killed, and begging us for common sense restrictions on alcohol purchasing? A convicted felon with multiple DUIs can go into any liquor store and buy whatever he wants.
Why is it that with guns the answer is always restrictions on guns? Is it possible there's something else we can do to help with gun violence? Since the mid 90's gun violence has decreased by almost 50% in the united states without extra regulations (in fact, the assault weapon ban expired in that time frame). Why has it decreased since then? Maybe let's try to do that some more.
France has very strict regulations on guns, yet just had an attack last year with illegal firearms that killed 130 people, almost 3x this recent event in the US.
Magilla's post hit the nail on the head regarding the issue of gun rights supporters fears that liberals and/or government want to take their guns away from them and would only want an electronic database to make that possible. As far as I know, this sort of thing would be totally unprecedented here in the US. It would also be unconstitutional. Aside from a few extremists, I think the vast majority of liberals would be aghast at the idea of government agents going door to door to confiscate guns. That is just totally unamerican. Yet the paranoia persists. I'm truly curious what, if anything, can be done by liberals to bring gun rights folks to the negotiating table trusting that the liberals don't want to confiscate their guns. Is something like a database such a nonnegotiable issue that can only be resolved one way or the other by whose side controls the politicians?
Unprecedented in the US because a large vocal group actively opposes it. It's very precedented in numerous other countries. Plenty of Americans I know would be fine with gun confiscation.
Which of these recent mass shootings would a registration have stopped? I can't think of one. Even if you argue it'd bring our overall gun violence rate down (which I'm not convinced of), the only time people get up in arms about registrations and gun violence is after mass shootings. Registration will not stop mass shootings, so the next mass shooting after registration takes place will have people calling for restriction, then confiscation, both of which are not possible without registration.
As I said earlier, the only thing that ever happens is more restrictions, not less. You never hear of lawmakers saying "Well, looks like our restrictions didn't work, guess it's time to get rid of them and try something else."
If there's another mass shooting at a school in Connecticut, do you think they'll rethink their weapons bans and registration requirements? Or will they simply add more restrictions?