Why not go for registration?

[AtheistCrusader]

In 1986, the Hughes Amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 banned all Select Fire weapons not registered before May 19th 1986.

A little bit two-faced, the same bill contained Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 926 (2) (a), preventing the Federal Government from establishing any sort of firearms registry. (LOL)

But in any case, as of May 19th of that year, all legally owned machine guns, select fire weapons, and components such as auto-sears are registered as firearms. They are tied to an owner (Who paid a $200 tax stamp for the privilege) and the BATFE can even come knocking and inspect them.

Since then, no follow-up confiscation of these registered firearms has occurred. (Ignoring perhaps some isolated incidents around restraining orders, which is a whole separate law/mess) The streets are obviously not awash in illegally trafficked select fire weapons. Illegally converted semi-autos are almost unheard of.

So, 23 years post-registration we have no broad confiscation. No credible threat of confiscation on the horizon.

Meanwhile, we have massive amounts of trafficking in non-select-fire firearms, and a disgusting patchwork of crap laws like limiting purchases to one a month, requiring reporting of theft or loss in a certain timeframe, trying to ban private sales at gun shows (while the newspaper still contains a classified section for firearms LOL), etc. None of this crap has ever been shown to reduce grey or black market trafficking in firearms.

I suggest that we get in front of this problem with a real solution, repeal Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 926 (2) (a), and GUN OWNERS AND ENTHUSIASTS get together and craft a real registration solution, with iron-clad grandfathering, so no firearms are banned post-facto.

[Pangolin2]

1. I'm a gun owner, not an 'enthusiast' whatever that is. I'm gonna pass on your idea.

...

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Can you elaborate on why?

[Pangolin2]

7. Want to retain what modicum of privacy still exists. IOW it's none of their goddamn business.

:D

[AtheistCrusader]

12. But it is their business.

The government has MADE it their business. When an individual, growing some pot in their basement for personal use is ruled to be governable via Interstate Commerce, this is their business too.

We can solve this for firearms by owning the issue. Doing the responsible thing. Drying up the secondary, illegal weapons market, by allowing prosecutors to find the people transferring these weapons from legal sales points, to the grey and black markets.

[Pangolin2]

13. I failed to express it succinctly. Whatever they have 'made' their business,

I object to -further- intrusion into my affairs. At some point, enough is too much.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. What about some give/take?

Would you trade registration for

the chance to craft that registration? Set the rules on who can view the data and why? To repeal stupid shit like 7 day waiting periods, 'one gun a month' rules, and shitty laws that capriciously target free assembly (gun shows) and not all private transfers?

[Treo]

19. No NT

[GreenStormCloud]

35. The problem is that I don't trust the antis.

Suppose that we allowed total registration of all guns, and in return got national CCW, national OC, machine gun registry reopened, and a clearing away of waiting periods, purchase limits, and everything else on our wish list. As soon as the new law was signed, the antis would be screaming for new bans.

But if, magical if, we could get all that we wanted, and the new law be frozen in place with no possible changes, then and only then would I agree with registration.

[Statistical]

36. We have none of those in VA... why would I trade nothing for something?

I don't think registration is useful for either preventing or solving crime.

There are an estimated 100 million street/illegal guns in the US. If Canada attempt at a post-sale registration scheme is any indicator we will have tens if not hundreds of millions of violations of the law (existing owners who do not register weapons).

How long will it take to dry up that supply (even assuming 100% of future sales are all registered)?

Police remove about 250,000 illegal guns from the street per year. 150+ million unregistered (refused) or currently illegal weapons / 1 million per year (300% increase over current efforts) = 150 years to "dry up the supply".

Of course that ingores the gains in supply from stolen weapons. Eventually even if weapons supply was constrained we would simply begin smuggling in weapons (just as we do with other illegal items).

Lastly that doesn't even address the huge costs in terms of dollars and logistical support. Money better spent on actual Police Officers.

Registration is an invasion of privacy and useless.

[X_Digger]

39. Good point..

See http://lawreview.law.wfu.edu/documents/issue.43.837.pdf for an explanation about why this would never work.

[iverglas]

42. hahaha

IMAGINING GUN CONTROL IN AMERICA:
UNDERSTANDING THE REMAINDER PROBLEM
Nicholas J. Johnson*

* Professor of Law, Fordham University Law School. J.D. Harvard, 1984.
I wish to thank Don Kates, Robert Cottrol, and David Kopel for their comments
and insights and George Mocsary for his excellent and timely research and
editorial work.

Guess he didn't like the idea of actual criticism.

CONCLUSION
Without a commitment to or capacity for eliminating the
existing inventory of private guns, the supply-side ideal and
regulations based on it cannot be taken seriously. It is best to
acknowledge the blocking power of the remainder and adjust our
gun control regulations and goals to that reality. Policymakers who
continue to press legislation grounded on the supply-side ideal while
disclaiming the goal of prohibition are deluded or pandering.

Hey, ask the wrong questions, you're bound to get really good answers.

Why is "eliminating the existing inventory of private guns" asserted as if it were somehow a proven necessity?

Who said that any public policy should be expected to produce its complete intended results overnight?

Who said that any public policy must ELIMINATE the problem it is designed to address?

Why are firearms control policies judged by standards that apply to NO OTHER public policies?

Why is DOING NOTHING better than DOING SOMETHING in this case and no other?



The Wake Forest Law Review. Leading scholarly journal, that one, is it?



Dog, its an incestuous, icky little world, isn't it?

http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/papers/women/Law-review-abstract.pdf
(rape! rape! rape!)

Oh look, it's Gary Mauser, professor emeritus of business extraordinaire, citing Nicholas Johnson:

Nicholas J. Johnson points out that anti-self defense advocates favor a submission
theory, that one should not resist a criminal attack.

Nah, that's not pointing out. That's lying.

And gosh, Johnson is right there on the abortion rights = "gun rights" bandwagon too.


A load of right-wing - yes, misogynist - assholes, wallowing around in their grubby right-wing sewer.

And you people keep dragging them here to this liberal / progressive / d/Democratic place and tracking their shit all over it ...

[LAGC]

55. Do you deny that you favor a "submission" theory?

That one should not resist a criminal attack and should just give in?

Certainly one could make the argument that the loss of property isn't worth taking a human life, but what if its YOUR life at stake?

Goddess forbid you're ever the victim of a violent crime... if I were religious, I'd only pray that the police were nearby and came quickly to your aid in time.

[AtheistCrusader]

56. Wandering a bit far off topic, are we not?

Not to mention inaccurate in your characterization.

[LAGC]

59. She's the one who brought it up!

Read her quote.

[iverglas]

80. what are you blathering about?

What did I bring up?

What "quote" should we read?

Substantiate your stupid insinuations or retract them. Or look like someone who makes baseless, false insinuations for no purpose but to attempt to disredit an adversary through deceit.

[iverglas]

79. DO YOU HAVE SOME FUCKING BASIS FOR INSINUATING THIS?

If you do, kindly present it now.


Goddess forbid you're ever the victim of a violent crime

What a pack of pig-ignorant cretins inhabit this place.

[Treo]

94. Pig ignorant cretins

And angry Canadians (isn't that an oxymoron?)

[LAGC]

104. I just hope nothing ever happens to you, iverglas, that's all.

You being unarmed and all. Those who have been victim of a violent crime seem to have a much different perspective towards the right to keep and bear arms. Guns in self-defense can be a great equalizer when some big, aggressive guy with evil intentions attacks.

[AtheistCrusader]

106. (unprintable)

Wow man.. Just wow.

I am astounded.

[iverglas]

114. thank you

[rl6214]

141. "A load of right-wing - yes, misogynist - assholes"

Again with the misongynist reference, what is it with you?

[gorfle]

52. Never.

I will never be a party to firearm registration. Ever. Period.

[Euromutt]

70. What's the payoff?

Accepting registration in exchange for setting certain terms of that registration is rather a lop-sided trade. Kind of like how getting to choose between being kicked in the gut or whacked in the gut with a baseball bat doesn't alter the fact that you're getting asked to consent to being whacked in the gut.

And all other things are determined at the state level, not at the federal level, so there's no guarantee whatsoever that those would (or could) be repealed (besides which, none of those apply in Washington state if you have a CPL).

I don't see the social benefit of registration in the first place. As things stand, the ATF can trace a specific firearm to its first lawful owner, which is fine, but they can't readily determine what guns a specific person owns (not without going through an awful lot of FFL's bound books). And, frankly, I don't see why they should be able to.

[AtheistCrusader]

83. The BATFE can only trace a gun

after it has been recovered at a crime scene.

They can't look through the records of FFL's in a given county, looking for mass purchases by an individual. They can't look through private transfer records that don't exist. They can do nothing proactive to cut off firearms moving from legal channels, to people who are not legally allowed to possess a weapon.

Federal Registration fixes both the unrecorded private transfers, and the just about impossible to get at paper records held by FFL's.


I want to keep guns out of the hands of shitheads that aren't eligible to purchase firearms.
I want to send the fuckers that transfer guns to ineligible persons, to go to fucking jail.

Law enforcement currently has no tool to accomplish this. Registration gives them that tool. We can say 'enforce the laws' all we want, but the BATFE's hands are pretty much tied. They can get the serial number of a weapon AFTER the crime, one gun at a time, go to the manufacturer, find out what distributor they sold it to, go to that FFL, see the paper form, and from there it's a great big fucking mystery.

We are surrounded by shitheads with guns that should not be able to acquire them. We are surrounded by shitheads that traffick guns from legal sources, into the hands of ineligible shitheads. LEO has pretty much no tools to identify and stop straw purchasing shitheads. Until they have that, all the law enforcement in the world isn't going to dry up the supply of guns on the grey and black markets.

[Treo]

96. F Troop

They can't look through the records of FFL's in a given county, looking for mass purchases by an individual.

They can and are, there have been several reports and a story (I'll get a link if I can find it) in the Houston Chronicle about F-troop agents going around to people who bought more than one firearm in a five day period(requires a special form) and asking them to produce the weapons. The smart people refused to talk to them W/ out a lawyer.

They can't look through private transfer records that don't exist.
I will never support regulation of private sales

I want to keep guns out of the hands of shitheads that aren't eligible to purchase firearms.
You can't that would be like keeping weed out of the hands of "ineligible shitheads"

I want to send the fuckers that transfer guns to ineligible persons, to go to fucking jail.
In Colorado private sales are unregulated as long as I have no reason to believe that you are a PP I can sell

Can you document all these "straw purchases" ?

[PavePusher]

132. I firmly believe that wanting to let the government into your private business,

especially letting them regulate your Constitutional Civil Rights, is a VERY unhealthy thing. If you can figure out a way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals without looking into my private life, we'll have a talking point.

There is this thing called "freedom".

It's big, scary and sometimes downright dangerous. You have to be careful and responsible with it. Often, you must fight to keep it. But it beats hell out of the alternative. Once given up, it is difficult and usually even more dangerous to take back.

[damntexdem]

25. Good, who are you going to pass it on to?

After all, it's such a great idea, and the minimum that we can do if we want to help the country emerge from the mess the gunnuts have made.

[Euromutt]

138. Which mess is that?

And how are "the gunnuts" responsible for its creation?

[Treo]

2. NO NT

[AtheistCrusader]

5. So, you would rather someone else does it?

Because in 2 or 10 or 30 years, at some point, it's going to happen. It happened to one class of weapons in 1986. It hasn't been abused. Sooner or later its going to get passed for all weapons.

You don't want to set the terms? I want to be front and center on that debate.

[TheWraith]

6. No, it's not bound to happen eventually.

Any more than we're bound to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. I'm pissed we don't have it now

but I would bet money we WILL have such an amendment within the next 10 years. We could have it right now if more Democrats were Progressives. But that's a digression.

The Hughes Amendment was passed via simple voice vote. That was a major piece of legislation. You bet a firearms registry, a shitty, worst case scenario registry COULD happen.

[one-eyed fat man]

75. The Hughes Amendment

was passed by a questionable voice vote under Charlie Rangel's stewardship as acting Speaker. He refused all calls for a record vote and gaveled it into existence. It was deceitful and underhanded legislative maneuver at best, an abuse of power at worst. If you can’t defeat a bill, adding a little “f*ck you” amendment is always a nice touch. As long as Rangel and his fervently anti-gun ilk are within 500 miles of the Capitol dome I wouldn't trust them with a Firearms Registry as far as I could pull an M1 tank uphill with my foreskin. (Figured I may as well get the penis reference in early so the antis will feel at home.)

What is a hoot is 20 years after the McClure-Volkmer Bill was passed the NY Port Authority is STILL arresting people for legally transporting firearms and telling them, in the finest Mall Ninja tradition, "......Federal law don't apply to New York!"

Torraco v. Port Authority New York

[Treo]

9. Once Guns are registered

They can't be unregistered. this country is full of politicians that would love to confiscate weapons and you can't guarantee me that they'll NEVER get their chance. When you can guarantee that no politician in America will ever use that registration to confiscate guns then I'll go for it.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. So we write the laws.

We craft the registry. On our terms.

If we come forward, shove those shitheads at the Brady Campaign aside, and do this, in our own best interests, as well as the public's, hey, win-win.

[Pangolin2]

14. Stick to crusading for atheism...I'll support that and even contribute.

:-)

[Howzit]

61. A registry is forever

Laws can be changed later.

[safeinOhio]

21. That sounds good to me.

In exchange for registration a constitutional amendment against confiscation from legal owners. I have lots of guns and hold CCWs in 2 states and I have no problem with registration. Law abiding citizens should have the right to guns. Dirt bags should not. Thinking the government is out to take your guns is right up there with tea bag thinking. Increase in gun crimes is the biggest threat to gun ownership. If registration slows crime by keeping guns out of the hands of criminals while protecting law abiding people, I'm all for it. I'm with you Crusader.

[Treo]

26. There already IS a constitution amendment against confiscation

It was there when the Police were confiscating weapons in NOLA

[Statistical]

37. You are aware that registration of NFA items began in 1934 right?

1986 simply as a scam in which already registered machineguns built in 1985 or prior were legal for civilians but no further weapons could be registered.

If anything the actions of 1986 shows us how a functional system can be exploited by the antis to ban weapons. Only 2 NFA registered weapons have EVER been used in a violent crime.

2 out of hundreds of thousands over a 70 year period.

Despite that they banned all future machineguns in 1986. Using the NFA registry they made it impossible for future weapons to b registered.

Today an M16 costs about $800 new however it can't be owned by a civilian. A civilian legal USED 1985 M16 costs $16,000 - $25,000.

Every year the pool of weapons shrinks due to theft, destruction, and simple wear and tear.

Eventually if the 1986 ban is not repealed there will be no automatic weapons in the hands of civilians

So you are using the 86 ban as a reason WHY we should register all weapons? Really?

[Howzit]

58. How many legally registered machine guns are there in the US? 20,000?

How many legally held, unregistered non-machine guns are there? 300,000?

I think the reason why machine gun registration isn't a significant predictor of things to come is because the ratio of ownership is something like 15:1. In case you don't know about the SKS semi-auto rifles that were registered in California and then confiscated, why shouldn't that be considered as a model for the effects of registration?

[pipoman]

68. no quarel with anything but the numbers

300,000 is a huge underestimate...10's (more likely 100's) of millions would be more accurate.

[Howzit]

87. OOPS Thanks for making my point

Don't know I was that tired. Should have been 300 million...

[Statistical]

74. There are over 300 million firearms in the United States.

So the "all firearm" registry would be about 1000x larger than the NFA database. With 1000x the cost, complexity, hardware, and manpower requirements.

[AtheistCrusader]

85. I hope you realize data systems don't scale like that.

Especially not when the records the data system has to handle are simple serial numbers, model numbers, and personal ID, all small, simple plain text, which compresses well.

The biggest piece would be outfitting the FFL's with a process to feed in data, whether a paper form faxed in, or some sort of data terminal. If street vendors at hempfest can come up with cheap POS entries for scanning visa/mastercard to sell hemp t-shirts, we can outfit FFL's with a secure data entry point as well.

[Statistical]

116. I hope you realize that generally data systems grow FASTER than linear.

A linear approximation is a best case scenario.

In very large databases, searches and analysis requirements grow SUBSTANTIALLY GREATER than a linear relationship (1:1) due to issues with creating and updating indexes, sorting, and inserts.

For example, sorting a list of 1 million entries takes more than twice as long as sorting a list of 500,000 entries.
At best you can get N log N efficiency out of sorting algorithms. So no matter how "compressed" the data is a database 1000x larger will take more like 3000x as long to sort (not a mere 1000x as linear logic would suggest).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksort

Of course it is unlikely you would want to compress any of the fields in a registration system. Compressed fields can't be indexes in SQL database. Given a police officer may want to search quickly on any field or combination of fields (all Springfield XD, 9mm, sold this year, in CA) you wouldn't compress then.

Large DB admins only wish data "only" scaled linearly. Also hardware becomes a major limitation. Double the hardware and you get no where 2x the performance out of it. Quadruple the hardware and you "might" get double the performance. The logistical overhead grows substantial with large databases.

Then again I manage an enterprise oracle database so what do I know.

[AtheistCrusader]

123. Actually.

I support a product that runs on SQL, and WSS, some of my customer databases are in excess of 500gb, so I know a little something about the subject.

We could probably model this on electronic DMV records. You have about the same number of 'people' and 'items' to be registered. There are about 1.6 vehicles per household in the US, and about 4 firearms per household*. (Both estimated) State DMV's can be queried across state lines by other state and federal LEO entities. They can tie together not only vehicle registration, but also 'trusted' ID like a drivers license. So the capability has already been built. The data is not as mind-bogglingly hard to handle as you suggested. 2.5x an existing, everyday, mundane system.



*Azrael D, Cook P, Miller M. State and Local Prevalence of Firearms Ownership: Measurement, Structure, and Trends.

[Statistical]

126. DMV? Exactly.

I never said it was impossible. I said it would be large & costly.

What is the operating budget for DMV database (or more correctly the sum of the 50 state databases)? I think it is a lot more than you think it is.
Be sure to add in the cost of data access for all Police, BATFE, and FFLs.

Also most of the cost comes from compliance. There are millions of unregistered firearms.
They all need to be registered eventually. Even over a decade that is 30 million entries per year.

All that data has to be verified physically and entered accurately. The manpower costs their are substantial, ask Canada.

Remember Canada has about 1/3 the firearms and about 1/4 the people compared to the United States.

[Howzit]

89. Thanks. 300 million is what I meant

Too tired to think, but awake enough to calculate a ratio. Dangerous combination...

[AtheistCrusader]

84. California was a technical snafu about when the law went into effect.

California fucked up. People who registered before the 'initial' cut off, still have their weapons. The registry was not used to collect lawfully purchased firearms. A registry need not have a provision that no more firearms can be registered. At some point a penalty for having an unregistered firearm should exist, but there should be no prohibition on registering and purchasing a newly manufactured weapon.

This is why it's important for people who own and use firearms to actually have a hand in crafting the legislation. If we don't, people who are hostile to simple possession will write these laws for us. See hughes amendment. See California.

We can fix the NFA registry.

[krispos42]

82. The legislation also fixed the number of guns in legal existance

Making the processes relatively static.



Also since then, about a dozen states have barred civilian-owned full-auto firearms from their juristiction. I'd be interested in seeing how those states found them and dealt with getting them outside their borders.

[TheWraith]

4. Except that there have been confiscations on the state level.

Furthermore, there's no credible evidence that gun registration has any effect on crime. Here in New York we have some of the toughest handgun laws in the country, including registration. It doesn't stop 750+ handgun deaths per year.

You computer could, theoretically, be used to trade child pornography. Therefore, shouldn't you agree to get it licensed, the details recorded with the feds, and submit it to periodic inspections?

[AtheistCrusader]

8. So why aren't NFA weapons floating around in the criminal domain?

Because they clearly are not.

New Yorks handgun problem is a precise illustration of the problem. People can go across state lines, purchase a firearm with no transaction history, and bring it back to New York. You can't go to Mexico. You can't go to Canada. You have to go somewhere here in the US, and get a firearm by private transfer.

Eliminate all private transfer, and you plug this hole. It's the best solution to the problem.


Please cite state confiscation of NFA weapons. Washington State never had legal Select Fire Weapons. When did a state use the BATFE's federal registry of NFA weapons to confiscate weapons within state lines?

[TheWraith]

15. It doesn't work that way.

For starters, you can't go to another state to buy a gun legally. Second, NFA weapons are tightly controlled because they're INCREDIBLY VALUABLE. Period. They're collectors' items, with the cheapest ones being worth thousands of dollars and the expensive ones going to the tens of thousands of dollars. Anything so valuable is going to be carefully controlled by those who own them. Not so with guns that are actually used in crimes.

The confiscations I was referring to were of non-NFA weapons, in California. People were informed that they could still legally register weapons affected under the CA assault weapons ban; afterward the state government reversed that decision and all the newly registered guns were seized.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Couple good reasons not to let pro-banners craft that legislation.

If firearms owners get in front of this issue, you don't have that snafu that occurred in California. I re-iterate, almost 30 years of NFA registration has not resulted in federal confiscation of FULLY AUTOMATIC (or burst) weapons. The most 'dangerous of the dangerous'. Public enemy #1. Still in lawful possession of private citizens.

The value of the weapons is not why these weapons don't make it into the criminal market. Owners have skin in the game. The base fee just to acquire one. The BATFE knowing where you live, and what you own. You don't think a criminal can plunk down 10k for a fully automatic weapon? Hell, they can do that just on automotive customizations. The value of the weapons in the legal firearms market is not the inhibitor.

I strongly believe knowing the jump-off point from the legal market to the illegal, is the key.

And no, you can't go into another state and legally buy a firearm. You can't legally straw purchase a firearm either. But people do. Because once they've moved the weapon, they are home free. So people from out of state come and buy from a private seller (a straw purchaser) in a state where firearms are legal. 9 times out of 10, they are going to get away with the whole thing.

[TheWraith]

24. Cost isn't the only barrier to an NFA weapon.

You also get subjected to a full federal background check. Know many gangbangers who can pass that? And contrary to popular opinion, full auto weapons aren't really of that much value in crime. If they were, it's possible for an experienced machinist to produce a cheap, illegal submachine gun using a decent shop. Nobody's bothered because criminals prefer handguns.

[AtheistCrusader]

27. No I don't know any gangbangers that could pass that.

I also don't know any straw purchasers that would risk moving these weapons, if the currently non-NFA weapon could be easily tied back to them.

[Treo]

29. War Story

When I was stationed in Germany we had a welder/ machinist ( that was his MOS) in our unit that said he could turn out an M3 for about 13.00$

[Statistical]

38. NFA weapons have been registered for 70 years.

However despite the NFA working perfectly it was used to BAN future weapons. Only 2 legal NFA machineguns have been used in a crime (and one of the two involved a LEO using a police machinegun).

Despite the NFA workin perfectly from 1934 to 1985 (51 years) it was used to ban ALL FUTURE machineguns.

The framework of the NFA put into place the regulatory functions necessary to make it incredibly easy to ban all future machineguns from private ownership.

The number of legal civilian registered machineguns is fixed and SHRINKING. Eventually given enough time they will all be gone.

Defacto ban. THAT IS WHAT THE 1986 LAW DID.

Registration existed since 1934, the 1986 law simply used that to ban weapons.

So what would prevent antis from doing the same thing with ALL WEAPONS. All weapons registered. The 2019 weapons control act prohibits new registrations of civilian weapons?

Not sure exactly what you think 1986 accomplished but it sure wasn't registration, it was a defacto ban

[AtheistCrusader]

40. I knew I'd fuck up some technicality.

Ok, so registration started with the original NFA, but the ban on new rifles didn't start till 86. So we have had registered NFA weapons for 75 years without anyone going nuts and confiscating them. New additions banned, ok, but we can fix that, and no one had any weapons CONFISCATED as a result. Nor are there any calls to confiscate the current NFA weapons. I have weapons older than that act, yeah the pool of NFA weapons is shrinking, but it's doing so verrrry slowly.

The NFA was quite the success. I would prefer anonymous ownership myself, but full registration seems to have been successful, and no henious confiscation has followed.

[Statistical]

41. Defacto ban is a ban.

Fix the 86 ban, wait 30 years to see if the antis try it again. If they don't then I will consider registration.

Just because there is no confiscation isn't acceptable. There is a ban and a stupid one at that.
The general public can be trusted with machine-gun registered in 1985 but not one made in 1986.

The govt has proven they can't be trusted with the power of a registry.

The NFA worked as written in 1936. In the next 50 years ONLY TWO CRIMES were committed with registered machinegun.

Despite the NFA working as intended, elements of the government decided to the use functional registry for a purpose it was NOT INTENDED. They used it to institute a defacto ban.

Unacceptable.

[safeinOhio]

22. They are not controlled by the government registration because they are

valuable. They are controlled by the owners because they are valuable and that is because of their rarity. If all hand guns were registered, the owner would be responsible for sale to a criminal. I have bought hand guns at garage sales. That means anyone could. I want to keep my guns and the best way to do that is to keep gun crime lower. If one is caught with an unregistered gun and goes to jail, that is one more deterrent to crime.

[TheWraith]

23. Isn't that what I just said? nt

[PavePusher]

45. What is this "unregistered" gun you speak of?

Fortunately, I do not live in, and do my utmost not to travel to, places where registration is required. I do not wish to support an Unconstitutional requirement.

[Treo]

67. Keeping your guns

The best way to keep your guns is to let your elected Representatives know that they will lose your vote forever if they ever sponsor, co-sponsor, endorse, introduce, vote for or otherwise support gun control in any form. Because of what happened in '94 anti politicians all know that AWBs are the third rail (you touch it, you die). The fact that 9 million or so guns ( that we know of) have been purchased in this country since Nov 5 2008 has also gut the antis attention. registration just lets them know you can be bought
America runs on three boxes
1. The Soap box
2. The Ballot box
2. The Cartridge box

[AtheistCrusader]

81. Lots of hyperbole

No solution.

Please explain how we combat straw purchases, when LEO is not free to look for people buying small quantities of firearms at many gun stores, or even private transfers, then turning around and selling them to people not eligible to possess a firearm?

People even frown upon the BATFE attempting to review FFL records as a 'fishing expedition'.

[Treo]

97. hyperbole

Please explain how we combat straw purchases, when LEO is not free to look for people buying small quantities of firearms at many gun stores
They are
And I don't think a clear call to write your reps and tell them where you stand is hyperbole. I use to work in the same building that my local congressman's offices were at. He knew me by name

[AtheistCrusader]

100. Soap/ballot/cartridge

Useless hyperbole.

And no, they aren't free to hoover up all FFL records in a county, or even a state, so they can mine for suspicious quantities of purchases. To ATTEMPT it would cost more in man hours than any national registry could cost.

They can hit one or two stores, and review SOME of the records, but unless they have a warrant and a reason to review every last purchase made at a particular FFL, it's logistically impossible.

[Treo]

101. Except

that they are doing it. if one person buys more than one gun in a 5(business) day period the FFL has to file a special form W/ F troop. recently they have been following up on these forms in border states

[AtheistCrusader]

103. If they buy it from the same FFL.

Doesn't happen if they go to two different FFL's, and it doesn't happen at all with private sales.

So no, the BATFE has a useless tool. Only useful for weapons sold through an FFL, recovered AFTER a crime has been committed, and the weapon recovered.

[Treo]

105. FTF

I will never support restrictions on private sales.

[AtheistCrusader]

109. It's not a restriction.

It's a paper trail. Not the same thing.


Also, help me out here:

FTF Face To Face (in person)
FTF Freescale Technology Forum
FTF Fair Trade Federation
FTF First Things First (Chattanooga, TN family strengthening program)
FTF Farmer-To-Farmer (Peace Corps program)
FTF First to Find (geocaching)
FTF Fight the Future (X-Files movie)
FTF Finalization Task Force (OMG)
FTF Finalization Task Force
FTF First to Fight (computer game)
FTF Future Total Force (USAF)
FTF First Time Fix
FTF Failure to Feed (A self loading firearm malfunction)
FTF Failed to Find (geocaching)
FTF For the Find (geocaching)
FTF Flexible Target Family
FTF Failure to Fire
FTF For The Fail
FTF Fugitive Task Force
FTF Failure to Fly (suicide by jumping)
FTF For The Fame (band)
FTF Full Time Father
FTF Flexible Technical Foils
FTF Filter Test Facilities
FTF Fiber Termination Frame
FTF Federal Telecommunications Fund
FTF Fuel Transport Facility
FTF FreeTradeFXP (online FXP group)
FTF Fill the Front

[Treo]

110. Face To Face

I won't suppory paper trails either.
None of my firearms are regisitered they're no threat to the public safety

[AtheistCrusader]

112. Lets say you die.

Whoever inherits your estate sells off your weapons to persons ineligible to purchase firearms via private transfers, because they can maybe get a little more money that way.

The weapons are a threat to society, AND the person who sold them off is likely to get away with it.

[Treo]

113. All Roads lead back to Rome

I’m sorry Aeth, but until you can give me an IORNCLAD, ABSOLUTE real guarantee that the U.S. will never (from today to the time the earth ceases to exist) be under totalitarian rule and that a registry will never (see above) be used to facilitate confiscation, I will NEVER (see above) support registration.

My views on these are polar opposites of your’s, if I were running the show there’d be no
NICS
Permit system
GCA ’68
NFA ’34
Brady 1
Brady 2
And mere possession of a firearm by anyone wouldn’t be a crime.

We’re never (see above) going to agree on this

[AtheistCrusader]

115. If we are ever under a totalitarian regime wherein registration leads to confiscation

It's time to 'put up or shut up'. If the firearms remained unused, our posession of said firearms are not a guarantee of liberty.

[Treo]

118. No

Now is the time to put up or shut up. No registration

[PavePusher]

135. Perhaps we should try to avoid...

getting to the totalitarian regime in the first place.

The best method for that is to restrict government, not the people.

[PavePusher]

134. Again, one of the risks of freedom is that some will abuse it.

So I guess we should just restrict everyone...

[PavePusher]

133. Umm, you missed one.

Between #2 and uhh, #2 (you count oddly, yes? 8>) ) there is, or at least SHOULD be, the Jury box.

Apologies for the typo sarcasm, it's been that kind of day...

[Treo]

140. Good catch NT

[Treo]

18. I can speculate

First, we know that Mexican drug gangs HAVE NFA weapons ( they buy them at a gun show in Bakersfield :rofl: ) I can't imagine that American drug gangs don't have them as well.

Why a criminal wouldn't be real quick to use an NFA weapon, most of the time criminals use a weapon and get rid of it. If the weapon in question is a Bryco/Jennings nothing much is lost, a 10,000$ NFA weapon not so much

[AtheistCrusader]

20. But you and I know that's not the case.

The NFA qualified weapons confiscated in Mexico came from just about anywhere BUT the US. That's the point. Registration, and licensing with background checks is SO effective, that you and I know with almost 100% certainty that every news report that cites the US as the source of any fully automatic weapon used in mexico, is horseshit.

That's how effective it is. Despite the desirability of select fire weapons, criminals in the US barely have two to rub together. We certainly aren't exporting them. If it has a serial number (And we're good at recovering the numbers that have been filed off too), the source is fooked.


If you know selling your $150 Bryco POS can come with a 10 year federal sentence, and they WILL find you, do you think that person is going to move very many guns into the grey and black markets? I don't think so.

[Treo]

28. So I don't sell

my $150 Bryco POS ( BTW if you pay 150.00 $ for ANYTHING from bryco....) some one just steals it and they sell it.
Come on dude there's a 100% ban on Marijuana sale and that doesn't seem to have effected the market

[AtheistCrusader]

30. Firearms don't grow in the dirt. :)

I think the bryco stuff retails at about 150. I have a .380 from them, or a company just like them. It's ok I guess. Something I can carry in lighter clothing.

Anyway, yes, some weapons will still make the jump into illegal markets via theft, but no longer via serial straw purchasers. Straw purchasing is already illegal, and nearly unenforceable, because the weapons cannot be properly tracked. No analytics of purchasing trends can be performed. You need a warrant to come paw through a specific FFL's paper records.

[Treo]

31. Please don't carry a Bryco

for self defense, they aren't reliable. Around here they sell for around 75.00$
As has been pointed out all you need is a machine shop to make a gun. I used to work in one in which EVERYone carried one of our guys even made a revolver just to see if he could.

Every weapon I own was bought in a FTF private sale. none of them have a paper trail that leads to me and I'm not prepared to give them up

[AtheistCrusader]

32. I have two firearms with a paper trail.

My wife has two. We have a bunch with none. I'd trade that 'anonymity' for a solid counter to straw man purchasing, and intentional movement of firearms into criminal circles. I've even got an excel spreadsheet.


I know you can make guns. My brother has a break-action shotgun my father made in high school metal shop. Looong before the law requiring serial numbers.

In any case, I've run the hell out of the .380, and I judge it reliable with the defensive rounds I've chosen for it. Insofar as a .380 can be considered 'reliable' at all. The only pain is, you have to tap out a pin to dissasemble for cleaning. Can't have everything, and it's better than nothing at all. I'm not going to shell out for a Para-Ordnance Warthog right now.

[Howzit]

66. "Mexican drug gangs HAVE NFA weapons"

They get them from the Mexican government, which got them from the US government.

[pipoman]

69. NFA weapons have never been commonly owned

even prior to 1934, sawn off shotguns are likely the most common NFA weapon privately owned. Their utility is limited. Prior to 1934 a person could buy a Tommy gun at their local hardware store, yet relatively few people did buy them.

[spin]

33. History shows that registration leads to confiscation...

take California...

In response to the furor over Patrick Purdy and his firearm, the California legislature defined and banned the "assault weapon." In 1989, it passed the Roberti-Roos bill, which listed roughly 70 firearms, generally identified by make and model and required owners of these guns to register them with the state. Additionally the legislature further defined "assault weapons" to include guns with specific characteristics such as pistol grips, magazine capacity, and other cosmetic features. The law was so draconian that even after gun-owners registered their rifles, the guns could not be sold or bequeathed.

By the 1991 cut-off date, only 34,000 firearms were registered, from an estimated 250,000 to 1 million firearms, and manufacturers renamed their firearms to avoid those named guns.

When Democrat Bill Lockyear, an avowed gun prohibitionist, became Attorney General in 1999, he dropped opposition to HCI’s lawsuit, thereby invalidating every post-1992 registration and causing all those legally-owned firearms to become illegal.

****snip***

This wasn’t happening in some Third World country, but in our most populous state: California. Honest, law-abiding citizens complying with a gun registration law were told to either turn them into the police, render them inoperable, or get them out of state. It was California’s version of firearms confiscation -- gun registration leading to ipso-facto gun confiscation.

In late June, the California Supreme Court recognized some of the 1991 law's flaws and partially limited the laws’ application in Harrott v. County of Kings. The Court simply stated that the DOJ must give folks notice of specifically what guns are 1991 AK or AR "series" guns.

The decision, however, in no way affects the original 1989 list and the 1999 amendments. Since the legislature passed the 1999 amendments and the new Attorney General unilaterally declared 140 guns to be AR and AK "series" firearms, this decision is too little, too late.

It’s easy to see why California gun owners believe their government is out to get them. They have borne the brunt of arbitrary and capricious definitions, and have watched gun owners arrested for mere possession of legally acquired firearms. Thus there grows among American gun owners, as with Americans during Prohibition, a vanishing respect for both the law-making process and the legal system
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=23707

On the surface, registration sounds like a good idea, but the gun grabbers shot themselves in the foot when they decided to confiscate guns in California.

However, I'll recommend the post as I feel it provides good discussion.

[Tejas]

34. No.

Have you contemplated the creation and cost of the endless beaurocracy that would be required to even start to register over 200 million firearms?

You want more of my hard-earned money for..........what?


Let me guess, this would work just like on TV. You dial 1-800-ATFGOV and read off a list of numbers to the friendly voice on the other end of the line?

Sorry to be so terse, I know you put some effort into your OP but you gotta be kidding. This would KEEP criminals in prison how?

[iverglas]

43. jaded yet?

Kiss of death, I know, but: nice try.



(That's the smooch of death.)

[AtheistCrusader]

44. Well, it's been a serious discussion so far

for the most part. And someone pointed out a glaring error in my OP, the registration of NFA weapons started in 1934. I feel that bolsters my argument, at least specifically where the cries of 'but they're just going to confiscate the guns' come in.

The other precedents of closing the NFA registry in 86, and the california assault weapon snafu, I feel, point to the need to have people who value and use firearms be the ones crafting the legislation. Meaning, do something pro-active, not screaming down and shouting over people advocating certain restrictions.

The debate needs to be rational and calm.

[Treo]

46. Why I will never understand support for registration

Registration assumes trust of the government trust in human nature. It assumes that at no time will there every be a government in power in this country that wants to disarm the population. Given the number of well meaning idiots here on DU that want to do exactly that, I consider this to be a foolish dream. This is the country that produced David Duke, Fred Phelps, Michael Bloomberg, and Janet Reno. A totalitarian regime happen here and as long as that possibility exist I will never support registration.

[iverglas]

48. "This is the country that produced David Duke, Fred Phelps, Michael Bloomberg, and Janet Reno."

........... I guess that just speaks for itself, don't it?

I mean, about the person who wrote it, nothing else.

[Treo]

50. I was going to add you but....

[iverglas]

47. the debate does indeed need to be rational

Just look at the fine example of that, preceding this. ;)

When introducing an idea to address a problem, one assumes that one's interlocutors share the perception that there is a problem, and your desire to mitigate it.

This may be your stumbling block.

[X_Digger]

53. Ahh, but politicians will be politicians..

What law has ever stood unchanged / unchallenged over time? What law crafted by the best second amendment supporters could _never_ be turned on its head?* I don't trust today's politicians as far as I can throw them, I certainly don't underestimate the wile of future politicians.

* see the Tiahrt Amendment- an amendment that says that the BATFE can never create a gun registry. What does the BATFE do? Some have seen them in their annual inspection whip out a hand scanner and process every 4473 on an FFL's books. Maybe part of an investigation, maybe not. The BATFE has no need for probable cause to open an 'investigation' (read fishing expedition) into any and all FFLs' records.

[AtheistCrusader]

86. If you want to catch straw purchasers

that sort of 'fishing expedition' is exactly what you should expect of law enforcement. Without that, they have to rely on informants, or sting operations. They have no other tools.

[X_Digger]

131. Makes as much sense as 'shall infringe' err 'may issue' permiting..

If it involved probable cause, I'd get behind it.

If you want a _real_ line of investigation that we have _today_ but never gets used in 90%+ of cases, start investigating NICS denials.

[Tim01]

54. Ivergals never kisses me, not fair. *depressed* nt

[Tim01]

49. I draw my line at registration, a big line.

Absolutely no registration, no fucking way. Not with my approval.

[AtheistCrusader]

57. But why, exactly?

We've seen the Weimar/Nazi gun registration/confiscation argument picked apart several times. I was going to say 23 years of NFA weapon registration, but someone corrected me, it's 75 years of registration of all legal NFA weapons, plus background checks, and no confiscation.

What is the danger?

What is the objection?

[Treo]

62. I do NOT believe that you don't get this

First they registered NFA weapons then they BANNED them.
We have politicians in this country (both sides of the aisle) that are one hundred percent in favor of full on weapons bans. Once they have registration all it takes is a good crisis ( where have we heard that before?) Every single piece of gun control legislation in this country was passed in response to a crisis. Just because something is inevitable ( and I'm not convinced registration is) you don't just roll over you fight your ass off and you don't just take an asswhuppin' you make them give it to you.

[AtheistCrusader]

63. They banned new ones.

People who had them still have them, if they chose to keep them. We can remove the Hughes Amendment. It's not even related. What's important is, the registration was not used to round up and confiscate any weapons.

I do not fear registering my firearms. Not even a little bit.

[Treo]

64. YOU may have nothing to fear

Can you say the same for your kids? Their kids? do you think anyone alive in 1900 would have predicted Hitler? ( Yes, I know I just Godwined myself). History if FULL of examples of politicians (Ray Nagin comes immediately to mind) who got their tail in a crack and over reacted. Remember, you're living in a Post patriot act world dude.

BTW registering NFA weapons was a STEP, closing the registry was a STEP and neither you nor I know what or where the next STEP is going to be.
Registration is a line in the sand that a lot of people will refuse to cross.

[AtheistCrusader]

88. The hughes amendment was horseshit

I'd sue myself, but I don't have standing, because select fire weapons are completely illegal in my state, per state law.

In light of Heller, that shitty law SPECIFICALLY bans military hardware the court understands the people have a right to possess.

Someone with standing needs to attack it. Fix it.

[Statistical]

128. Sucessful lawsuits take millions of dollars and years.

Somebody with a poor legal team and little funding likely gets to Supreme Court and loses.

Thus created a nationwide precedent that banning a class of weapons is Constitution. A precedent like that probably will never be overturned.

So I am sure someone will sue eventually but I hope they take their time and are well equipped.

Of course standing is more complicated than that. To have standing you must actually be harmed.
You would need to attempt to register a 1986 machinegun. Of course the catch-22 is how do you get possession of a post 1986 unregistered macchinegun to attempt to register it? If you somehow do you accept the fact that you have committed a felony and if you lose you can expect 10-15 years in Prison.

The DC v. Heller case originally had 8 plaintiffs. All were dropped because of a lack of standing except Heller. He actually took his firearm to DC Police and attempted to register it and was denied. He was the only one able to legally do that because his job allowed him to carry a firearm while on duty (which he was when attempting to register).

[Statistical]

71. No registration made it easy to ban new machineguns.

An unvoted amendment got slipped into a bill closing the registration and passed in the middle of the night.

The govt has shown they can not be trusted with a registration system.

While registration wasn't used to confiscate firearms it was used to ban registering of new firearms.

There is nothing to indicate the govt has an increased respect for RKBA today compared to 1986. I have no faith that if all firearms were registered someone wouldn't pull a "Hughes" and slip a bill in prohibiting registering of new firearms after 2012.

The state of CA has used registration to confiscate (or more importantly require the citizen to turn it in or face legal charges) firearms. The federal govt improperly used registration.

Repeal the Hughes amendment, let 30 years pass without an attempt to use the registration system for infringement and if the govt has given up on the idea they have a right to infringe upon RKBA then maybe I will accept registration.

Also have you looked into what it would cost to make a nationwide registration system? What about compliance? What about registering the 300+ million weapons already in private hands? What about the up to 100 million street/illegal firearms?

[Tim01]

72. Just look at Great Britain.

Their path is our path. But we are fighting against going down that path, and we have the Second Amendment to protect us.

Everything that I would say has already been said.

[michreject]

51. No nt

[proteus_lives]

60. I will never, never register the firearms I own.

I'd rather chuck them in lake Eerie or bury them in the woods. I was pissed enough that I had to register and be finger-printed for my CCW card.

[TPaine7]

65. A few reasons spring to mind...

First, the law would only affect the innocent. Innocent people could be prosecuted for not registering their weapons, felons could not.

Second, IMO no single entity should have a list of all guns in the United States. Power corrupts...

Third, the machine gun registry is not very representative of a total firearms registry in my opinion. No doubt many of the powers that were would have banned the weapons in 1934 if they could have; they got what they could in the political climate. It was a first step. But the result of the first step was a forced scarcity that caused machine guns to migrate from common people to the very wealthy--precisely the type of people the gun control forces trust with weapons. This made the second step--banning machine guns outright--unnecessary as well as difficult.

The machine gun registry would only be comparable to an ordinary weapons registry if new production of ordinary weapons were stopped and somehow ordinary weapons became scarce--leading to only the wealthy having guns. I agree that in this imaginary scenario confiscations would be unlikely, but it has little relevance to reality.

Think of yourself as a typical politician--a governor or big city mayor. Why confiscate guns from Donald Trump? You play the same golf courses and attend the same charity balls, he contributes to your campaign, he has a world-class team of ferocious lawyers, and he can bankroll your opponent in next year's race. Besides, he's trustworthy--he's upper crust just like you. He's exactly the type of person of "good moral character" who you would deputize or make an honorary police officer in Chicago or DC so that he could carry concealed.

While I disagree with your objective and one of your premises, I do think we have a moral obligation to make straw purchases more difficult and to hold accountable those who engage in straw purchases and careless sales. Ideal would be a system where each sale is recorded, non-felonious status of both parties is established, the information is securely stored (perhaps encrypted) away from government access, information is only available to government with a court order, there are severe PERSONAL penalties for abuse of the system for fishing and other nefarious tactics with no or low immunity protections for officials, there are constitutional--or at least vast supermajority--obstacles to changing the system for nefarious purposes.

[X_Digger]

76. True, felons can't be forced to register their weapons..

see Haynes v US

So yah, those 75-100 million 'street' guns would continue to float around unregistered. (Not to mention you'd be creating a market for more unregistered guns that would start flowing in with those shipments of drugs.)

[AtheistCrusader]

91. Most of the 'drug source' countries have tighter restriction on firearms than we do.

Right now, arms flowing BACK to those countries makes good business sense. Several tons of weed one way, several tons of straw purchased semi-autos back the other way. No dead-heading. Win-win.

Registration would put them in a situation where they would then desire to import illegal firearms from overseas, and that importation would actually compete with drugs for 'bandwidth' to penetrate our borders. And guns are big, bulky, and heavy.

[Treo]

107. Why in THEE Hell

Would they waste their money on a semi-auto clone from America when they can buy the real McCoy from China?

[AtheistCrusader]

111. Many reasons.

One, dead-heading carrying capacity back from the US, for schemes that get tons of drugs across the border.
Two, FA weapons aren't terribly necessary.
Three, it's logistically easier to sneak in a few containers at a time from the US than it is to smuggle in a few containers via boat from China or NK, or where ever.


Though you can be sure, if we dry up illegal transfers in the US, Mexico will see a serious uptick in smuggled weapons via ship from Asia and overland through their southern borders. But that's not my/our problem.

[AtheistCrusader]

90. I don't see 'fishing expeditions' by the BATFE as 'nefarious'.

It's exactly the solution to identify purchasing trends that will 'out' straw purchasers. Otherwise, you have to wait until two or more firearms that individual 'turned' are recovered post-crime, traced back to the original FFL, and the paper forms reviewed tying those two weapons to the straw purchaser. And even then, you might not catch him, if he credibly claimed they were sold to private parties, and the BATFE is powerless to find out this guy bought hundreds of guns, 2-3 at a time from various FFL's around the state.

To me, fishing expedition has a negative slant to it, indicating looking for rules violations, just to fuck with the FFL. Data mining to identify illegal trafficking is not 'fishing' in my book.


No, of course felons won't register their weapons. But you turn the pool of weapons they have access to on the grey and black markets into a fixed (barring hand made weapons and smuggling) pool that will shrink far faster than the NFA weapons pool we have now.

[X_Digger]

129. Not a fixed pool, though..

Supply of illegal arms would rise to meet demand (see pot) and some portion of the legally owned, registered 300M weapons (assuming 100% compliance) would fall into the black market (actual theft, "staged" thefts, etc). Between those two sources, how much of a dent in the 75-100M illegal market do you think could be achieved?

I like the idea of reducing the availability of guns to criminals, I just don't see a way for registration to significantly affect this goal, and I can see a lot of downsides that will outweigh any benefit it does provide.

[Will E Orwontee]

73. Sure registration . . . after this happens

I would like to see a Militia Law be written following the template of The Militia Act of 1792 requiring all males to own an appropriate (of the type "usually employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military equipment") weapon. They are already enrolled because of the selective service registry and that then would be the gun registration you want; just add a line on the form and update existing data with the type and serial number of the weapon to be used for militia service.

That is the only legitimate purpose for the government to know what weapon (notice not plural) I own. That of course does not give the government any powers to dictate or condition the ownership of any other weapons I own (see 2nd Amendment). The government can know what single weapon I would use to perform militia duty if called, that's it.

That presently, there is no active militia law demonstrates the government is not interested in what weapons (plural) I own . . . And that's fine too!

"That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack. . . "

VI. And be it further enacted, That there shall be an adjutant general appointed in each state, whose duty it shall be to . . . obey all orders . . . relative to carrying into execution, and perfecting, the system of military discipline established by this Act; to furnish blank forms of different returns that may be required; and to explain the principles of which they should be made; to receive from the several officers of the different corps throughout the state, returns of the militia under their command, reporting the actual situation of their arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, their delinquencies, and every other thing which relates to the general advancement of good order and discipline:

Militia Act of 1792 , Second Congress, Session I. Chapter XXVIII, Passed May 2, 1792

A "return" listing the citizen's militia arm is the only legitimate "registration" of the citizen's arms.

[slackmaster]

77. Because registration CAN lead to confiscation, I have to assume that it would eventually do so

I can't predict what kind of government we'll have in 10, 20, 50, or 100 years, therefore I can't trust it.

[iverglas]

130. Watch out!!!!

They've come for your car.

Next, your kids ...

[PavePusher]

136. There are some people out there...

Repubs and Dems both, who want exactly that.

But hey Iverglas says it's going to be all right.

[iverglas]

137. happy hour, is it?

:wtf:

[benEzra]

78. The 1986 closure of the NFA registry is Exhibit A as to why the gun-ban lobby can't be trusted

with a registry. The number of people killed murdered between 1934 and 1986 with lawfully owned automatic weapons was, AFAIK, two, and one of those was a contract hit by a crooked police officer. Yet the gun-ban lobby closed the registry anyway, just because they could.

If all you have to do to halt sales of new guns is to close a registry, then guess what the gun ban lobby will be trying to do: halt new registrations of "assault weapons," halt new registrations of over-10-round handguns, halt new registrations of all handguns, halt new registrations of all non-"hunting" weapons, whatever. 1986 was a precedent in that sense.

[AtheistCrusader]

92. Prevent it.

Setup the registration via constitutional amendment if necessary, and prohibit these registry closing shennanigans. You could even fix the NFA registry this way.

[Treo]

93. There already IS a constitution amendment against registration NT

[AtheistCrusader]

95. Can you be a little more specific?

I'm aware of a law against it, but it is by no means a constitutional amendment.

[Treo]

98. Here it is

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

[AtheistCrusader]

99. wtf

How could firearms registration be interpreted as an infringement of the 2nd?

Edit: Mis-using a registry to confiscate weapons certainly could be considered an infringment, sure. Yet another piece supporting the possibility of a safe and effective registry.

[Treo]

102. But you can't promise that the registry will never be used

to confiscate weapons.

That's alot of people's points here. Once you register the weapons you are but one step away from the government saying turn them in. I don't care how long it takes to get from point A to B I REFUSE to go to point A

[AtheistCrusader]

117. I can't promise our politicians will never instate the death penalty for posession of a firearm.

I can't promise lots of insane things.

What I can promise you is this:

If we build the laws for a registration scheme, we can construct something we can live with, and see positive reductions in the availability of grey and black market firearms.
If gun control groups build the laws for a registration scheme, we are well and truly fucked. We will see shit like the Hughes amendment. We will see shit like what happened to the 'extended registration' 'oops nevermind' scheme in California.

That I can promise you.

[Treo]

119. I'm living just fine

W/ no registration

[Statistical]

121. The antis won't stop.

That is what you don't get.

Even if hypothetically you passed a registration system today with all the safeguards in place....
what about tomorrow? what about next year? next decade?

The only way the Hughes amendment got passed is BECAUSE THE NFA REGISTRY ALREADY EXISTED

Votes that require funding can't be passed in that manner. Closing the registry costed nothing.
Changing requirements costs nothing, making prohibited classes of weapons costs nothing, requiring annual registration fee costs nothing.

Passing the registry is the hard part. It WILL be expensive, time consuming, and require far more resources than you imagine. That creates votes against it. Once up and running tacking on a little infringement here, a little one there is easy.

You can't write laws to be forward looking. You can't write the laws such that is constrains all future Congresses till the end of time.

So a "Hughes Amendment II" which prohibits adding semi-auto pistols to the registry could EASILY be passed in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years from now.

[AtheistCrusader]

124. With the exception of prohibition

it's pretty clear we can write laws that require monumental effort to change. Make it a constitutional amendment. Problem solved.

[Statistical]

125. We don't have the voted to pass a constitutional amendment.

Not even close.

Hell we couldn't even get 60 votes in the Senate for conceal carry reciprocity.

Amendment would require 66 votes in Senate + 2/3 in house (which have lots of reps from anti gun cities) + ratification by 3/4th the states.

[AtheistCrusader]

127. Give and take.

Hell, it hasn't even been tried. You can't know what sort of support it might get from either side, until something useful has been crafted.

I will borrow language from existing statutes and suggest the actual wording of such an amendment in another thread for feedback.

[Statistical]

122. I am 100% against registration but it is Constitutional.

Lots of historical evidence that towns after ratification of bill of rights had registration of firearms. It was mainly to determine if the town had sufficient weapons if/when militia was called up but they did exist.

However just because something is Constitutional doesn't mean we should do it.
It would be Constitutional to require every person flying on a plane to buy and own their own parachute just in case. Doesn't mean I think it is a good idea.

[benEzra]

108. We would risk losing everything while gaining nothing.

Criminals can't be punished for failing to register illegal firearms, as that would violate the 5thA and we're not about to repeal it, nor would I want to. And the gun-control lobby would fight hard against any amendment that didn't create treat guns they purport to like and guns they hate differently.

Thing is, no matter how harsh a gun-control regime you create, the gun-owner-haters will never stop calling for more restrictions on lawful ownership when a tragedy happens; look at the UK after Dunblane, or Australia after Port Arthur.

And given the history of registration in this and other nations, you would you get much compliance with a registration edict. I have read that the compliance rate with California's scary-looking-gun registry is guesstimated at around ten percent.

[Statistical]

120. Constitutional amendment requires 2/3 votes.

Not nearly enough votes for that.

[SteveM]

139. I can't go along with registration...

Such a scheme would fall into the laps of the gun-banners who, no doubt, would push for more restrictions, bans and confiscations. These people are prohibitionists and act accordingly.

There has been serious discussion here about opening up the NICS for individual use (now limited to FFL holders), piggy-backing the current state auto license/official I.D. systems, wherein the NICS test would result in a code imprinted on your car. Sales could then be administered for a small transfer fee, and be out of government hands by using non-governmental "authorities." Government could not access this info except through duly-authorized search warrants. After a time period, records of individual sales would be erased by these non-governmental authorities.

Personally, I have my doubts whether individual NICS tests would be effective in stemming crime or "gun violence," but I'll keep an open mind.