Your thoughts on Firearm Registration

While I don't know if cops went door-to-door to confiscate known registered weapons, I'm pretty sure that registered owners of them were notified -- at least in the case of New York City in the '70s -- to bring in X, Y and Z firearms or face prosecution for keeping them beyond the ban's "grace period." Or something like that. They may not go door-to-door, but the threat of going to jail for keeping banned firearms is made known.

And you, the gun owner, are left to guess whether they really will come around to arrest you if you fail to turn in what guns they know you have.

-blackmind
 
Here's a question. Your firearm is stolen. It's found 1/2 way across the US during an unrelated search warrant. How do the police trace it back to you?
Also, the culprit claims the gun is his. No registration, no way to notify you.
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Even if reporting theft/loss wouldn't work and the gun had to be registered at time of purchase in order to get it back if stolen...

Why not make registration voluntary? If someone wants to take the risk of not having a stolen firearm returned, that's his prerogative.
 
I believe an answer to this question must surely lie in history. I would refer anyone pondering the potential harm of registration to the example of nazi Germany. They had registration. Just before confiscation. Just before implementation of the dictatorship. achtung, baby. :)
 
Why no registration? Because I believe there are to many laws regarding firearms as it is. Age limits, waiting periods, background checks, transfer restrictions, specific gun bans, and more. All of these laws are circumvented by those who want arms for criminal purposes. Registration would be as well. Surely nobody expects Tyrone the Thug to register his stolen Lorcin.

At one time in this country a person could mail order a gun from Sears or Montgomery Wards. Our country was far from crumbling then. Then our predecessors caved in on laws because they were afraid of who might be mail ordering and stockpiling guns. I believe it was Bobby Seale who first said "By any means necessary". The very core of gun owners became afraid of what might happen and they supported restrictive legislation. The very root of these kind of laws are racist, and seek to only arm the ruling class. JFK was assasinated, then MLK, then RFK. Legislation was agreed to, made into law, and restrictions imposed for the common good. Gun owners agreed to many of these laws. Many gun owners actively supported the passing of them.

Our forefathers believed that the common good was supported by being able to obtain and keep a gun without infringement of any kind. They had their reasons. Someone tried to take their guns at Concord. They refused.

Hopefully I have not rewritten history to much here, my point is that our very country was founded on and because of arms in the hands of men who wished to be unincumbered by an oppressive government. To take Jack Booted Thugs out of the argument and suggest gun registration demonstrates a fundamental misconception of the entire argument for or against registration of firearms.
 
TX_RGR beat me to it. We can all look back and see how Germany's firearms registration worked out in the 30's.
You should look at laws not only for the good that they may do but also the harm that may come from the wrongful application. Registration of firearms will not help in the solving of crimes. It will not help in preventing crimes. The only thing it can do is provide assistance in the seizure of guns from citizens if and when the government deems it neccessary.
Please do not trot out the tired and inappropriate comparison of "we register our cars" argument. For one thing there is no right to own and operate a car. The second part is that car registration is used to insure the collection of taxes on property for owning and operating said car. Are you willing to advocate firearms registration to allow the collect of taxes for the ownership of firearms?
 
I have a question, as an impartial observer.
By registration, I assume you are referring to the paperwork you fill out at a gun shop. So we are talking about private sales where no paperwork is required?
Hopefully I have this right. Now, anti-gun folks dont like guns because people use them to shoot people. Theoretically, background checks done while buying from a dealer go some way to preventing guns ending up in the wrong hands. Wouldn't it help the gun owners cause to have some kind of check on everyone who wants to buy a gun?
 
I'll respond Chorlton....
By registration, I assume you are referring to the paperwork you fill out at a gun shop. So we are talking about private sales where no paperwork is required?
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This is not registration. This is a background check. Registration would require paperwork to be filled out and kept on file indefinitely, and revised each time a firearm changed hands or the owner moved. Registration is a record of who owns what listed by serial number, name and address.
Theoretically, background checks done while buying from a dealer go some way to preventing guns ending up in the wrong hands. Wouldn't it help the gun owners cause to have some kind of check on everyone who wants to buy a gun?
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Background checks don't really help prevent criminals from obtaining guns. Criminals would steal guns even without background checks. It's more cost effective. Think about it.......if a person was going to rob a liquor store, why not burgularize a home first and steal a gun to commit the robbery with? It's cheaper. What background checks and waiting periods do is prevent innocent law abiding citizens from buying guns for immediate protection. How many women have been beaten to death by estranged husbands while waiting on an arbitrary 10 day waiting period? Are their lives worth any less than your's or mine? Why should they be denied effective protection to satisfy some politician's fantasy about how the criminal goes about his business?
 
No criminal would be stupid enough to use a gun he himself bought in a world that has gun registrations.
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BS, see it all the time. Crooks are stupid, that's why most are caught. This is another comment I frequently see. It is an emotional defense that is basesless and used in defense of "the only people hurt are law abiding citizens" debate.
Also, we all know that for the most part, registration will not prevent crimes. No kidding. It helps to solve them though. Not much really prevents people anymore (not even the death penalty).
I brought up this thread to try and narrow down what the real issue is. To have some bona fide, concrete defenses that I could think on, and try to explain to my coworkers. Through that, I was trying to slash through all the paranoid jibberish normally associated with a hot topic such as this.
So far, most of what I have seen and read is the "eventual slide towards an unarmed society", "Nazi registration," "JBT SWAT Teams crashing in my house," and "not wanting to be plugged into the Matrix", or something to that effect.
A little background, I support the rights to own guns, to carry openly (though I think it is tactically deficient) and to defend those rights. Sh*t, I've sworn an oath to the Constitution a few times (which I still can recite by memory).
Question: If you were able to set your mind at ease an believe that our right to bear arms would never be taken away, b/c you know that sort of BS would never be allowed in this country , would you then register your firearms for the same reasons you register your car? (i.e. identification of ownership, etc.). Instead of blasting away with jibberish, TALK to me about real concerns that have happened in this country (not Germany 1942, or India). That's all I'm asking.
 
History cannot be denied - gun registration has but one purpose

New York, registration of all firearms, confiscation of many firearms. California, registration of "assault weapons", grand fathered, minds changed, and confiscation of said firearms.
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The only purpose politicians have for registration of firearms is for that information to be used in confiscating firearms. When firearms are registered,GUN OWNERS ARE ALSO REGISTERED.

Think about that for a minute...
The Waffen-SS registered guns and the Jews that owned them. The guns were confiscated and the Jews were butchered by the millions.

Not only did this happen to the Jews of Nazi Germany, but has happened time after time after time in the 20th century. Over 150 million people have been murdered by POLITICIANS who first disarmed their prey. Gun registration, confiscation and genocide are all interwoven and are facts of history.

History cannot be denied.

A genocide is currently going on on the African continent, all made possible by a brutal regieme and the citizenry it left disarmed and defenseless.

Politicians who seek unlimited power with no accountability ALWAYS seek to disarm those who they wish to control and subjugate.
When the people no longer have arms in their possession, they no longer have the means to resist. When the people no longer have the tools with which to forcibly remove corrupt politicians from office, the politicians are no longer accountable to the people.

They become a power unto themselves, ruling by sheer force. They no longer are made to stand for re-election; they ask the people with an arrogant sneer, "What are you going to do about it??"

Gun registration and confiscation are inexorably tied together; THEY ARE EVIL, plain and simple, as are those who attempt to institute them.

First the politicians and their lackeys want "reasonable" gun control, which they say is registration. Next, they want to "control" guns - by confiscation. It is then that their mask comes off and the once free citizens are faced with tyranny, enforced by the doctrine of submit, conform, obey or be crushed.

History cannot be denied - politicians in suits have killed more innocent citizens than have all the street criminals and invading armies of history combined.

Gun registration, control and confiscation is the blueprint for suffering, tyranny and death; think about that the next time some jack@ss politician in a Brooks Brothers suit starts singing about "reasonable" gun cotrol.
 
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If you were able to set your mind at ease an believe that our right to bear arms would never be taken away, b/c you know that sort of BS would never be allowed in this country , would you then register your firearms for the same reasons you register your car?
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Nope. I honestly don't think I can be convinced that the reason for registration could be for any purpose other than eventual confiscation. Because you do not think it could happen in the US is not enough evidence to convince me that it could not.

I don't think a person should have to "register" a car either. Why do they have to register cars? Is it because they are valuable property? If so, then why is jewelry not registered? Cars are "registered" to increase the tax base through sales taxes, liscences and safety inspections. Why must I "register" a Land Rover that is used on my property to perform chores, but not my 4 wheeler nor my tractor?

Calling the other person's position jibberish is not productive to an enlightened argument. You discount what has happened in other countries as impossible in the US. The US has never had national firearms registration, nor confiscation. However, there are those in government who have stated on the record that they would like to confiscate every gun in private hands in the US (except their own, of course).

"Our goal is to not allow anybody to buy a handgun. In the meantime, we think there ought to be strict licensing and regulation. Ultimately, that may mean it would require court approval to buy a handgun."-- Michael K. Beard, President of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
[Washington Times, 12/6/93, page A1]

"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an out right ban, picking up every one of them... "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in," I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."--U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," 2/5/95

"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe."--U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein Associated Press 11/18/93

"The Union agrees with the Supreme Court's longstanding interpretation of the Second Amendment that the individual's right to keep and bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a 'well-regulated militia'. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected." ACLU policy statement #47 (1986)

"Once Brady is signed into law, we will have to go back and get this sunset [phaseout of the delay] undone." Rep. Charles Schumer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 11, 1993

"If it was up to me, no one but law enforcement officers would own hand guns..." Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Federal Gun Legislation Press Conference in Washington, D.C., November 13, 1998.

"I believe all handguns should be abolished" Sen. John Chafee: The Associated Press, January 9, 1997

"We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!" Rep. Charles Schumer: Press Conference, December 8, 1993

"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come." --U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden Associated Press 11/18/93

"Until we can ban all of them we might as well ban none."--U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum Senate Hearings 1993

"Gun registration is not enough."--U.S.Attorney General, Janet Reno on "Good morning America," 12/10/93

"Mr. Speaker, I still believe that the best way to control handguns is to ban them outright." -- Rep. Cardiss Collins (D-IL)

And finally, my favorite...........

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." -- William Jefferson Clinton, USA Today, March 11, 1993.

How close we came..........
 
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They reguired NFA weapons to be registered, then cut off the registry, in effect making them now illegal to buy.

They required weapons in DC to be registered, and then shut off the registry.

There are two examples of where registration in America leads. I don't want to take that chance with anything else.

BTW, I don't particularly like the fact that cars are registered, either. Licensing for use on public roads, I don't have much of a problem with. Keeping track of who owns what, I do.
 
BreecherUp said:
Question: If you were able to set your mind at ease an believe that our right to bear arms would never be taken away, b/c you knew that sort of BS would never be allowed in this country, would you then register your firearms for the same reasons you register your car?
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http://www.thefiringline.com/library/quotes/antifreedom.xml

I suppose it's BS for people in D.C., or BS for people in Morton Grove, IL, or for people with "assault weapons" in California, Mass, or New Joisey?
 
Thanks, Tyme and TFL.

This quote makes me stand in slack jawed amazement of how some people couldn't logically think their way out of a paper bag:

If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!

Henry A. Waxman

Representative (D-CA)

Lots of solid evidence in that link that anti-gun folk won't be happy until all gun rights are rescinded.
 
Leftists in the U.S. are railing on and on and on and on about "the regime of G.W. Bush," and how he is stripping us of our rights, etc. etc. and the U.S. is becoming a police state.

Whether or not that is true (a debate for a different thread),
given what we have seen as INCONTROVERTABLE FACT in the 20th century: that registration and then confiscation of civilians' guns by governments has ALWAYS been a prerequisite for their SLAUGHTER,

it is inconceivable to me how those same people who think that the government here in the U.S. is headed in the direction of tyranny ALSO support the idea of the civilians of this country losing the right to have guns, and or their registration. (Registration should now be considered tantamount to a guarantee of later confiscation. If anyone wants to argue that it isn't, they can be shown the black-and-white history of it all.)

It's insanity.

Democrats, specifically, fit this description. They voted for Kerry, they bitch about Bush's "regime," they refer to him as a Nazi, and yet they maintain that "only the police and the military should have guns," and "all guns should be registered and all owners licensed."

And we get the likes of Schumer, who would probably burn the White House to the ground just because he knows Bush has slept there, who steadfastly seeks gun ban after gun ban, and registration schemes, and bullet-marking/gun "fingerprinting"...

What does he think would happen if/when the "Bush regime" that he so loathes instituted martial law? That we'd somehow be able to get back all our rights by using speech?

Insanity, I say.

-blackmind
 
If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!

Henry A. Waxman

Representative (D-CA)
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Is that quote accurately rendered, typographically?
Because if it is, then it is also proof that Waxman can't even construct a proper sentence, much less a proper thought.


I suppose he has a problem with the fact that revolutionary colonists in this country did EXACTLY what he says makes him fearful of people.

These were people who gave up or risked everything they had in order to throw off the yoke of an oppressive government, using arms to do so in defense of their innate human rights, and he says that they are people to be warily regarded and feared. What an asshat. He's the type of schmuck who truly should be stripped of his rights, because he simply doesn't hold them in any esteem.

-blackmind
 
Right Butch, but how does a cop in NC know to look up the FFL in CA regarding this weapon.
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If a gun is recovered at a crime scene, he contacts the manufacturer with the serial number. The Manf tells the cop in NC to what FFL the gun was shipped. The FFL then tells the NC cop to what individual the gun was sold. The trail may break down after that due to personal trades and selling or outright theft, but the trail starts that way.

If you were able to set your mind at ease an believe that our right to bear arms would never be taken away, b/c you know that sort of BS would never be allowed in this country , would you then register your firearms for the same reasons you register your car?
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Breacher: No, because registration is a violation of my right to privacy. Besides, what useful purpose does registration serve? {Car registration does not compare because the products are vastly different and used for entirely different purposes. I actually own an unregistered car right now, and as long as I don't try to drive it on public roads I am not violating any laws.}

If the purpose of registration is strictly a desire to have a forensic trail to every firearm in the USA, I don't think it will work. There are way too many unregistered guns floating out there now, and in the future (if there was a comprehensive effort to register all guns), then the criminals (who are not ALL stupid) will make a comprehensive effort to obtain guns through means that wont leave a paper trail to their front door. The registration would in effect enhance and enlarge the black market for undocumented guns, as has happened through out history with so many different products.

So, logically and unemotionally speaking, I don't see an effective use for LE for a national registration, and I do see an increase in black market activity, and to trump those I see it as an invasion of my privacy.
 
Breacher, you made an assertion that registration helps solve crimes.

In the hypothetical scenario where my RKBA was not in danger, I would be willing to listen to instances where an investigation netted a suspect solely because a recovered gun was traced back to that suspect. If there were a lot of those types of cases -- I'm not sure precisely how many it would take -- I'd be willing to continue a discussion about the merits of registration. In order for me to ultimately agree to registration, the government would have to meet a lot of other conditions. There would have to be additional guarantees that the registration database was unhackable or nearly so, and employees with access to it were absolutely trustworthy, so that criminals couldn't use The List as a shopping list. It would have to be run efficiently and cheaply, because it would be funded by taxes and I hate taxes; the government does not have a good track record running things cheaply and effectively.

In a hypothetical universe I might agree to gun registration. I don't think that's particularly relevant, but you asked.
 
Tyme, crimes are most certainly solved b/c of registration. As said before, sometimes it comes back to the same damn crook. More often than not, it comes back to someone that sold it, was in the same gang (yes, I have seen GBs with registered firearms, they just hadn't commited any crimes yet), or lent it, etc. There starts the lead that investigators need.
Again, I'm trying to understand reasons people have for not wanting to register. I'm trying to learn. Whether or not I agree, doesn't matter. I'm also throwing out reasons for registration. Also playing a little devil's advocate. Knowing all sides of an issue leads me to the path of a well informed decision.
 
The car is still titled to you, isn't it?
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Not yet. It is an older car that was registered to a family member many years ago, that registration is lost and is no longer in the DMV system. If/when I decide to drive it on public roads I will have to get a replacement title for the previous owner and then do the paper work as normal.

But for now it is not on the radar screen, and I kind of like that.

I have a hunch that there are a lot of old cars like that on farms and ranches and deer leases. If you never take them on public roads, you can just let the registration expire, and eventually the DMV system will drop it off. Imagine all the wrecked cars that are no longer registered but that no one bothers to tell DMV about. They must have a system to dump old titles and registrations after some period of inactivity.
 
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