Cory Booker, responding to the mother of a Connecticut teenager killed in an accidental shooting, said that there has to be “federal accountability”, and said he would push for a federal gun storage law if elected president, though he stopped short on offering any specific requirements.

“Every one of us in America right now, by doing nothing, is implicated in this,” Booker proclaimed at a forum on “gun violence” sponsored by March For Our Lives and Giffords, “It’s not just the NRA, or the corporate gun lobby, but us too.”

The New Jersey senator said if he gets to the White House, he would demand Congress “end this national nightmare”, and make the United States “free of violence”.

The gun control plan that Booker unveiled earlier this year doesn’t mention a federal safe storage law, but does propose new federal laws on reporting lost and stolen firearms, requiring national gun licensing, and even requiring “microstamping” of handguns, which he says would “allow law enforcement to trace crime guns as soon as a shell casing is found, helping to prevent future crimes from occurring.”

In California, the state’s microstamping law has meant that no new firearms have been sold in the state for several years, and even some older models are no longer allowed to be sold after the state determined that even the smallest of design changes amounted a brand new model of handgun that has to comport with the state’s microstamping law. It’s literally impossible to comply with the state’s requirement that a unique identifier is stamped on a cartridge in two locations, but so far the law’s been upheld in court.

Booker’s promise to make this country “free of violence” is a complete fantasy, but it’s worth noting that Booker had nothing to say about the recent FBI Uniform Crime Report showing a decline in both violent crime and homicide in the United States in 2018. We’re going in the right direction without any of Booker’s gun control proposals, but the candidate insists that once his plan is in place, we’ll be living in a violence-free utopia.

Even on the issue of a gun storage law, Booker’s fundamental unseriousness comes through. What will the penalty for violating a federal safe storage law be? How could such a law be enforced, except after the fact? And who exactly would enforce a federal gun storage law to begin with? Local police? That might be problematic, given that Booker’s on board with local law enforcement not helping enforce federal immigration law.

“Forcing local police to detain undocumented immigrants who are suspected nonviolent offenders wastes limited resources, distracts police officers from fighting serious crimes, and harms the ability of officers to build trust and cooperation with the communities they are sworn to protect.”

Forcing local police to detain American citizens who are suspected nonviolent offenders of federal gun storage laws, gun licensing laws, and gun bans wastes limited resources, distracts police officers from fighting serious crimes, and harms the ability of officers to build trust and cooperation with the communities they are sworn to protect as well, wouldn’t you say? Booker wasn’t asked about “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” communities, but if he ever gets the chance to enact his gun control plans, he’ll have to reckon with thousands of jurisdictions that won’t lift a finger to help enforce his restrictive policies.