So in spite of the percentages for pistol deaths vs assault rifle deaths I suspect there will be continued pressure to ban assault rifles that will not then yield much interest in banning hunting rifles or pistols because there is simply no interest in getting there by the bulk of gun control proponents and no logical way to make the argument either. Pistols are inherently defensive weapons and hunting rifles don't combine the unique characteristics of an assault rifle. By the way, the gun community does not do itself much good calling an AR-15 a "sporting rifle" or the rounds "varmint" rounds.
What else should they call Hornady VMAX or similar rounds typically fired from an AR-15 at varmints? Do you know just how many different types of rounds there are for the AR in just .223/5.56mm? If pistols are inherently defensive weapons how do so many criminals find them useful in the hundreds of thousands of violent offensives they commit each year?
I do think the move to make NICS actually work and have actual background checks and return to some sanity with regard to mental illness and guns (said sane legislation having been completely reversed by the very first thing signed into law by the current administration) will continue.
You should do some more research. The restrictions on the mentally ill buying guns as established by the Gun Control Act of 1968 and codified by 18 UYSC 922g are still in place. It's a common meme that Congress and Trump allow the mentally ill to buy guns, but Congress and Trump simply overturned a new rule, not approved by Congress, that added new categories to the list of prohibited persons in 18 USC 922g. These groups also opposed this SSA rule:
"ADAPT, which “urged Congress to use the Congressional Rule Act to repeal this rule“; from the American Association of People with Disabilities, which pressed Congress “to support a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to disapprove the Final Rule issued by the Social Security Administration (SSA)”; from the ACLU, which pushed “members of the House of Representatives to support the resolution disapproving the final rule of the Social Security Administration”; from The Arc of the United States, which asked “Congress to act, through the CRA process, to disapprove this new rule”; from the Association of Mature American Citizens, which exhorted “Congress to quickly pass this Joint Resolution and restore the basic Second Amendment rights this rule has abridged”; from the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, which implored “Congress to act, through the CRA process, to disapprove this new rule and prevent the damage that it inflicts on the disability community”; and, in addition, from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, the Disability Law Center of Alaska, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors, the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy, the National Association for Rural Mental Health, the National Council on Disability, the National Council of Independent Living, the National Coalition of Mental Health Recovery, the National Disability Leadership Alliance, the National Disability Rights Network, the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, and Safari Club International. All of them — every single one — urged that the rule be killed."
https://www.nationalreview.com/corn...round-check-system-or-give-guns-mentally-ill/
Here's the ACLU position:
https://www.aclu.org/blog/disability-rights/gun-control-laws-should-be-fair
But an effort to ban all guns.....Illogical NRA BS scare tactics designed to continue to scare gun owners out of their shorts and to the polls.
No bans of guns protected by the Second Amendment, Caetano, Miller, Heller and McDonald are acceptable.