Is fear of confiscation valid?

K

Koda94

New member
One of the arguments against universal background checks is the included registration scheme. We tend to call this a "scheme" because we know that make model and serial number has nothing to do with a persons background, but a registered firearm can be confiscated later. Essentially, if its not needed then why include it if there wasnt a hidden reason.

However, if one looks at the laws concerning background checks, federally they are required to destroy the background check record by the next buisness day.
The next place the records are kept is with the states. In my state, the law allows Oregon to keep the records for up to five years, then they must destroy them. Im not certain how other states handle this.
The last place records are kept is with the FFL dealer, who is supposed to keep the records privately for 20 years (IIRC). After that he can destroy them. If the dealer goes out of buisness, the records must be turned over to the feds.

With SCOTUS upholding the 2A right individually, and supposidly the feds and everyone else are destroying the records, is the fear of confiscation via registration valid?
 
The assumption that record destruction is actually occurring is a GIANT "if"... CIA, NSA, and ATF have demonstrated that they'll color outside the lines at the drop of a hat, but I'm sure the others are perfectly well-behaved. [/sarc]
 
Fear of Confiscation

All it takes is a change in the balance of the court. As was mentioned, we have no guarantee that records ARE actually being destroyed. Consider, too the anti- gun legislative creep in California. The Democratic controlled legislature feels compelled to keep chipping away at gun rights. Big government should scare the hell out of us.
 
As with preparation for other potential setbacks in life (such as driving w/out a seatbelt), I follow the philosophy that "you're only allowed to make the mistake once."
Better to be vigilant beforehand than to be sorry afterwards.
 
I'm unaware of any confiscation effort that isn't enabled by registration.

And if you look at recent history, you can see registration of various "assault weapons", followed by further restrictions, and even outright confiscation. Ask the SKS owners who, after registering them, later received letters ordering them to be turned in, and when they complied were arrested for possession of a forbidden weapon.

Don't be deluded by the siren song of "it can't happen here", it can, and it has.
 
Completely valid.

Look at the state's of CT, NY, NJ , etc. to see how gun control can creep in with a political party that is anti gun in power. The same is certainly possible on a national level, conceivably including confiscation. A change in balance on the Supreme Court could make it even more possible.

Change can be very insidious.
 
First off, the only thing preventing federal registration is the prohibition in the 1986 FOPA. A hostile congress, or even a not-so-hostile one during a crisis, can pass legislation to invalidate that.

(There is nothing that prevents the states from enacting registries of their own.)

Second, folks assume that confiscation will involve systematic house-by-house searches. They picture some sort of Red Dawn scenario, and gun-control advocates often use that image to ridicule us.

In reality, it doesn't have to go that way. They just need to bust Joe down the street and take his guns. Word will get out, and the incident will have a chilling effect on the whole neighborhood. Marvin and Nancy will see the writing on the wall and surrender theirs voluntarily.

They don't have to get all the guns. They don't even have to get a sizable percentage of them. They just need to make a few examples. That's the beauty (?) of the idea: it allows for selective enforcement and prosecution.

Does Herb down the street have a few off-the-books guns? Sure, but he contributed to Mayor Greebley's campaign, so he'll be left alone. What about Tom, who spoke out about corruption in city politics? Oh, he'll get a visit.
 
Second, folks assume that confiscation will involve systematic house-by-house searches.
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I agree that this is not a likely scenario.

They don't have to expend that much energy. I've posted this elsewhere.

All they have to do is make them illegal and wait. Over time, they'll chip away at the folks who don't turn them in or register their guns. A little at a time, one here, one there, so there's no obvious point at which those who are non-compliant feel like their collective backs are up against the wall and might be spurred to organized resistance.

Someone turns in an enemy, a wife spills the beans during a divorce, someone's kid says the wrong thing at school or at the doctor's office or to a buddy. Somewhere there's a paper trail that turns up a gun that should have been surrendered. Someone has a house fire and they find illegal guns in the ashes. Someone gets careless and gets caught at the range with something he shouldn't own.

They have all the time in the world. Why bother risking lives and resistance by doing a door-to-door? Waiting works just as well if you're not impatient.

They will eventually get them all and with very minor effort.

In the meantime, those non-compliant folks who wouldn't give them up won't be able to rationalize any advantage in keeping their guns. What's the point of having a gun you can't use in self-defense or to hunt, or even to shoot? The only option would be to hide it away and never use it again on penalty of getting caught committing a felony. They might as well have turned them in before the grace period expired and taken the pittance offered for all their non-compliance gained them.

There's really only one logical "line-in-the-sand" moment, and contrary to popular opinion and oft-repeated slogans, it isn't "when they come for your guns" because that's never going to happen.
 
We saw that with machineguns. Those who didn't register their illegal guns during the amnesty in 1968 did not benefit from the rise in prices after registration was banned in 1986. So now, MG's are legally owned only by a few old folks or wealthy individuals, and there will be no more in private hands.

But if those who want to ban guns choose not to wait years, a few EO's would be quicker. Ban transfer of any gun without a background check by a dealer, then revoke all FFL's. No dealers, no checks, no transfers, not even by inheritance. All guns would be seized on the death of the owner.

Jim
 
Saw this a while ago.

With new laws and whispers of confiscation, no knock raids, makes me think hard times are coming. Hopefully the rest of the American public will pull their heads out of their butts and think about what they are doing to our way of life and the constitution of the United States of America. The people that who wrote it , the people who died for it and the people who are fighting for it know. Ounce it's gone, it's gone!
 
Koda94 said:
However, if one looks at the laws concerning background checks, federally they are required to destroy the background check record by the next buisness day.
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I agree with Rattlehead. I absolutely do not believe that the government is really destroying those records ... ever.
 
The #1 key thing to understand about gun registration in the USA is that only a law-abiding firearm owner can be prosecuted for failing to register a firearm.

In Haynes v. United States (1968), the SCOTUS famously (or infamously...) decreed that the 5A protects a person prohibited by law from possessing a firearm from prosecution for failure to register a firearm. The logic is straightforward if seemingly a bit absurd: registering the firearm would effectively incriminate the person, but the 5A prohibits the government from compelling a person to incriminate himself. Thus, a crook can be prosecuted for unlawfully possessing the firearm, but she can't be compelled to register it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States
https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.haynes.html

The consequence of this Catch-22 is that the ONLY valid reason for requiring firearms registration in the United States is to facilitate confiscation from (or taxation of) LAW-ABIDING firearm owners.

The whole "It will keep guns away from criminals!" argument simply doesn't wash because criminals can't be prosecuted for failing to register illegal guns, and thus, a mandatory registration law poses no threat to them. Most people- sadly including most gun owners, in my experience- don't understand this. :(

FWIW the related "It will help the cops conduct searches and make arrests!" argument also doesn't wash because the most dangerous criminals simply won't register their guns. This has been found to be true in many Western countries that DON'T have a direct analogue to the 5A to protect the crooks from prosecution for failure to register an illegally possessed firearm.
 
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supposidly the feds and everyone else are destroying the records,
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I'm real good at remembering part of the news, and not so good at remembering all the details, but didn't we have a news item, (or maybe a court case) not so long ago that involved a GOVT agency keeping records when the law said they should have been destroyed?

I don't recall the details, or how it turned out, sorry. But one thing that did stick in my mind is that the govt had kept records they weren't allowed by law to keep, and were arguing that they HAD to keep them even longer...

And to help you sleep better, there is also the possibility of the govt doing an "end around" the letter of the law. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the govt can destroy the records, complying with the law in one agency, and keep them in a different agency. The FBI (for instance) could simply send a copy of their data to a different agency, one NOT required by law to destroy its records, and thus both comply with the law, and avoid loss of their lists at the same time.

Certainly they could do it, and get away with it until/unless someone took them to court over it. And, there is no guarantee that if we did take them to court, that a court would rule in our favor.
 
They are sort of already doing confiscation. Look at NY and the people who have already had to sell some of their guns to be compliant . They have to register them up there, right? I don't follow northeastern politics much, but I'd bet some people will be getting arrested if they haven't already for not complying.

CA bans all kinds of things. People there have squirreled certain guns away, but if they are caught in possession then they will go to jail.

Confiscation is basically here already.
 
The more important basic issue is that those who are pushing for increased registration requirements, or any other "gun control" measures have admitted over and over that their true aim is the elimination of the legal ownership of firearms by all citizens. Every time we try to consider whether or not some new proposal is "reasonable" we have to balance that against the reality that our opponents see every inroad into gun ownership as a small step in the direction they are heading. So no matter how much invective is thrown our way, we need to steadfastly refuse to support any additional gun control efforts. We need to remind others that "shall not be infringed" has already been infringed upon more than it should be, and we will not willingly move further down the path of gun banning and confiscation.

And because we know that gun control laws do not reduce crime, and do not make us safer, we can rest assured that there never will come a time when the anti-gun crowd says "we are now satisfied; we have passed enough gun control laws and wish no further restrictions on your right to own a firearm". So regardless of what they are seeking at the moment, it is absolutely certain that it will later be viewed as just another incremental move toward total banning of private gun ownership.
 
Who is going to prosecute the gov. For breaking the laws they wrote themselves? Government cops? Government judges? Citizens who have no legal authority to make arrests? The only recourse I can see we have is to vote them out only long after its too late, only to.replace them with another dubious politician, and I don't find that very comforting at all.
 
several states pretty much already have confiscations in place. Feds could announce a similar set of laws that will be enacted at X date in the future. It wouldn't be hard to publicize & then conduct countless buy-backs, they could print however much $$ they needed to pay out to ensure a good bunch of guns get turned in. Then run PSA's encouraging folks to turn in anyone they think might be a "gun extremist". Publicize any seizures of "dangerously large weapons caches" (probably more than 10 guns/couple thousand rounds of ammo would fit this, AKA probably most posters here would qualify). That would scare anyone that was borderline wanting to remain law-abiding into turning in their stuff.

It's not that hard to imagine such a thing happening.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies. I agree with all of them.

I recently participated in a gun control debate, and with no proof there was any active confiscations happening I was labeled a "conspiracy theorist".
 
Wasn't there a recording of some NY state representatives, I believe it was, after a vote on gun control saying confiscation was the key? I would say fear of confiscation is a valid concern.
 
We only have background checks if you buy from an ffl here. Luckily the gun control crap has died down a bit. But it's going to be an ongoing debate until the world ends.
 
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