Monday, April 13, 2009

REGISTERING THE FIREARMS

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI, California Democrat, announced last week that she wants to register guns. Her next move will be to try to confiscate them.

The speaker picked a television show with a viewership of 4.6 million to float the Democrats' coming gun-control push. Questioned on ABC's "Good Morning America" about the prospect of new gun-control laws now that "it's a Democratic president, a Democratic House," she responded, "We don't want to take their guns away. We want them registered."

Politicians and bureaucrats routinely claim that registration helps solve crimes. If a registered gun is used in a crime and left at the crime scene, registration supposedly lets the police trace the gun back to the criminal. Though this turn of events might work on fictional TV crime shows, it virtually never occurs in real life. Criminals' guns are rarely left at crime scenes. When guns are left behind, it usually is because a crook has been seriously injured or killed and the police are poised to catch him anyway.

The few guns left at crime scenes rarely—if ever—are registered to the perpetrator. If they are registered at all, it is to someone else, whose piece was stolen. Despite what Mrs. Pelosi might think, those who use guns to commit major crimes such as robbing and killing are unlikely to respect her request to file paperwork so the government can catalog the tools of their trade.

Numerous examples disprove gun-control propaganda. Hawaii has had licensing and registration of guns for about 50 years. After all of the administrative expenses and inconvenience imposed on gun owners, police there cannot point to a single crime that has been solved as a result of those programs. Given Hawaii's remote island geography, this should be an ideal place to keep track of guns because movement in and out of the state is limited and legal importation is controlled. If registration is going to work anywhere, it should work there. Unfortunately, criminals seem to be able to get their hands on guns virtually anyplace in the world.

Other jurisdictions with a history of strict handgun bans, such as the District of Columbia and Chicago, have even required registration of hunting rifles and shotguns for more than 20 years. Neither the District nor Chicago can point to any crimes that have been solved using registration records.

Read it all.

Hmm, I think I'm going to go and purchase a firearm for the first time. If confiscating legally owned firearms doesn't reduce crime, then the government is indeed trying to wrest power from the people—which is why I and every member of my family should own a gun. The rapid speed and vitriolic nature of these powerful Democrats in moving their agenda is frightening, and despite all I have ever believed about this country and its honor in leadership, I do now believe we are headed for a constitutional crisis with the transnational statists.

Perhaps we may all soon need to defend liberty and the constituion of the United States by own own actions and blood, if this awful trend proves more a taste of reality than unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

Labels: , , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home