So in other words a background check. And I would sure expect something more authoritative than just asking.
Why is it that the NRA is so opposed to background checks?
The NRA is opposed because the gun debate has basically devolved into a tug of war where each side holds an extreme view and sees every move as an attempt to go to the opposite extreme. And each side DOES that.
The NRA thinks if they give an inch on background checks, the anti side will just keep pulling on the rope and try and get a mile, and they WILL.
The abortion debate is the same. Polarized into a tug of war to the point where no policy at all gets enacted.
Suppose the NRA agreed to background checks. Next you would have Bloomberg financing a campaign to have them implemented as a registry of gun owners so the police would know who had and did not have a background check (and guns). That would create a registry of gun owners which the NRA is dead set against.
In a less polarized world you could find a compromise, a way of implementing the checks without creating any centralized records. You could do training the same decentralized way, with no centralized database of who had training.
That would likely be acceptable to everyone but it will never happen because if either side agreed to it the other side would play tug of war and try to get more. So neither side wants to give an inch.
Look in Canada at what the RCMP will do next: use some slimy sketchy argument to ban a whole lot of rifles based on some very flimsy excuses. That is what the NRA thinks will start happening in the US if they let a Canadian style system come into being.
