What gun control proponents miss about the US is that we literally have more guns than people.
I don't know of a feasible way to take even a meaningful fraction of those out of civilian hands, just at a practical enforcement level.
Never mind the political nightmare taking guns away en masse would produce. It might just actually trigger a civil war here.
It's like with this old saying about how You eat an elephant (a piece at a time). Same here - this can be done slowly and gradually. It does not have to be done out right.
They could start with limiting current sale of guns (by bringing some control over to who can buy what and when). Introduce some sort licences (but maybe for guns bought after the law was introduced). And than taxing the shit out of bullets (for personal use). Prohibit trade of guns between people (only b2c, this could be quite hard and unpopular but could address the problem of existing guns). And then start to buy guns of people with sufficient premium on price.
This could be costly but I believe that over the time would eliminate this strange culture of mass gun possession.
Lack of political will = the voting public doesn't want it, literally. If the public wanted it, federal and state legislatures would be in session right now to pass such laws.
Why doesn't the public want it? All the things you suggest hassle legitimate firearms owners, which is a significant voting bloc, driving them right into the arms of the extremist 2nd A. groups and spiking firearms sales drastically every time new harsh legislation is proposed, making the problem even worse.
So why insist on following the same losing strategy that has been followed by gun control advocates in the past? It is culture and public perception that needs to change and addressing that is not something that can be fixed by legislation.
Since when this stopped the politician from serving their own intrests (and intrests of the money behind them)?
But You are right it would be better to change the culture but the problem is that there is not a lot of money in taking away guns and at the same time there is a lack of ideological front that could influence people (for example churches somehow do not have problem with guns)
The Uvalde shooter purchased his a few days prior to the attack. Who knows what might have happened if he hadn't been able to.