2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 112,243
- 52,465
And here we have a case made about why registration of guns is a stupid, unConstitutional idea...
What's wrong with a registry?
But gun registries have a number of problems. For one, they don’t solve crimes.
Canada’s experience with a long-gun registry illustrates this. After having spent some two billion dollars, the program was found to be ineffective at solving crimes or keeping people safe.
The State of Maryland has had a similar experience with its ballistic fingerprint records, finding that in fifteen years, only twenty-six cases were aided by the registry, and in those cases, law enforcement already knew which guns were involved.
All of this, of course, is in addition to the major question of how we would register American guns in the first place, considering the hundreds of millions here presently and our porous borders.
What registries do allow is confiscation. The experience in Britain of gun control worsening over time illustrates this. The same is true for Australia. And we’ve seen attempts to do the same thing in New York and California.
And then there’s the more basic question of privacy.
This is a concern that goes broader and deeper than just gun rights. Whether we’re talking about the NSA’s spying on our e-mail and telephone calls or the FBI’s desire to have a door opened for them into iPhones, it is abundantly clear that government wants easy access to our personal lives, in spite of and in contradiction to the protection of the Fourth Amendment.
A gun registry would simply be yet another example of this.
I’m sure that all of these points are a case of preaching to the choir, but as I was told once, even the choir needs to hear a good sermon now and then. In the battles over gun control, we risk letting some things slip through when confronted with a flurry of demands, and it’s up to us to make sure bad ideas are not converted into laws.
What's wrong with a registry?
But gun registries have a number of problems. For one, they don’t solve crimes.
Canada’s experience with a long-gun registry illustrates this. After having spent some two billion dollars, the program was found to be ineffective at solving crimes or keeping people safe.
The State of Maryland has had a similar experience with its ballistic fingerprint records, finding that in fifteen years, only twenty-six cases were aided by the registry, and in those cases, law enforcement already knew which guns were involved.
All of this, of course, is in addition to the major question of how we would register American guns in the first place, considering the hundreds of millions here presently and our porous borders.
What registries do allow is confiscation. The experience in Britain of gun control worsening over time illustrates this. The same is true for Australia. And we’ve seen attempts to do the same thing in New York and California.
And then there’s the more basic question of privacy.
This is a concern that goes broader and deeper than just gun rights. Whether we’re talking about the NSA’s spying on our e-mail and telephone calls or the FBI’s desire to have a door opened for them into iPhones, it is abundantly clear that government wants easy access to our personal lives, in spite of and in contradiction to the protection of the Fourth Amendment.
A gun registry would simply be yet another example of this.
I’m sure that all of these points are a case of preaching to the choir, but as I was told once, even the choir needs to hear a good sermon now and then. In the battles over gun control, we risk letting some things slip through when confronted with a flurry of demands, and it’s up to us to make sure bad ideas are not converted into laws.
