No, and no. My point is that we spend far too much time trying to convince our own side that background checks and red flag laws just aren't that effective while I see little evidence that we're doing enough to educate voters.
Witness how the initiative process in some states resulted in a majority of the voters actually approving some pretty draconian gun restrictions while at the same time, in spite of our side's efforts to lobby our state legislators (and overwhelm them with evidence), they continue to draft, and pass, more and more gun control laws.
For every red state that passes a feel-good "Second Amendment Sancturary" bill or some type of bill to limit further restrictions, three or four states are coming up with additional restrictions. Clearly all our preaching to the choir hasn't worked, and our efforts to educate the voters are falling on deaf ears.
What should be more concerning to you all, as I mentioned before, the new gun owners (remember the pandemic gun-buying frenzy by first-time gun buyers?) are jumping through all the hoops to purchase firearms through licensed dealers, and for the most part have accepted the waiting periods, background investigations, redundant documentation and monumental paperwork hassles as normal. Beyond that, polling and surveys reflect that the general public has a favorable opinion of both background checks and red flag laws. Not so much waiting periods, but the fact is, the new wave of gun owners as well as then entire non gun-owning population approves of both these concepts.
One of the problems is that there is truly no way to quantify whether or not, or how many, homicides by firearms and criminal shooting incidents are actually prevented by UBCs and red flag laws. We only find out about the failures, and really, all that does is increase the push for additional restrictions. Every now and then it does come out that some miscreant wanted to shoot his ex-girlfriend, shoot up his former workplace or school, but didn't pass a background check for a purchase and wasn't enough of a criminal to steal a gun, buy a gun on the black market or couldn't figure out how to do a private sale (if legal in the state concerned). This then gets touted by some elected official, administrator, police chief or sheriff as a success of these types of laws.
So, the other side argues that these regulations work (and to the uninitiated, it all sounds perfectly logical), but we have no real way of documenting how they don't work -- without making it look like the laws and regulations need to be increased or tightened up. Finally, even if we could empirically prove that some of these laws actually do more harm than good, our lazy electorate will still believe that "it's doing something," which is better than doing nothing, because face it, Americans cannot understand that most of the time, the best laws are the least number of laws. Our system for too many years has operated on the principle that our leaders have to generate more laws, sign more laws in order to have the appearance of being good leaders.
Even though I detest Neil Young's politics, I remember that song, "Teach Your Children Well." Some things are starting to seem inevitable though, as we've created what has to be the most stupid electorate in the world. How else can one explain how The Squad keeps picking up new members?