Column: The fallacy of gun registration
Date: Jul 14, 2008 12:41 PM
The fallacy of gun registration
By Charles Bloomer web posted July 14, 2008
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0708/0708gunreg.htm

One of the gun grabbers’ favorite “common sense” gun control measures
is gun registration. As with other gun control schemes, the anti-gun crowd never
considers whether or not the particular “common sense” law actually does
anything constructive. In actuality, the “common sense” gun laws are
grossly deficient in common sense.

Last week on WTOP radio’s “Ask the Chief” program, Washington, DC
Police Chief Cathy Lanier inadvertently admitted that the District’s gun registration
program was a failure. According to the Chief, “Honestly, there are thousands
of handguns that were registered in the city and I don’t know whether those
handguns are still in the city.” Of the 41,000 handguns registered, the police
department cannot account for 36,000.

The handguns in question were registered back in 1976 when the District’s near-total
handgun ban became law. The law grandfathered handguns that already existed in
the city, but required the owners to register them. The owners of 41,000 handguns
dutifully registered the guns. Yet now, 32 years later, the District does not know
where 88% of those handguns are.

I have some follow-up questions to ask the Chief.

What purpose did registration fulfill? Did the program keep guns out of the hands
of criminals? Did the registration scheme prevent handguns from flooding the city?

What contribution did the registration of handguns make to:
Solving crimes,
Denying guns to criminals,
Reducing violent crime,
Keeping guns off the street, or
Public safety?

How much taxpayer money was wasted in the administration of the gun registration
program? How many police man-hours were wasted – man-hours would have been more
effective patrolling and protecting the city?

How much time was wasted by the citizens of DC in complying?

How much money do you intend to waste in your planned audit of the system?

Is it really necessary for the government of DC to “account” for private
handguns? What purpose does that serve? Does the police department really need
to know where every gun is? Why?

Since this example of handgun registration has been shown to be an absolute failure
and a total waste of time and effort, do you still intend to push for a new handgun
registration requirement as the city implement’s the Supreme Court’s decision
in Heller? How much of the taxpayers’ money are you going waste in implementing
the new registration requirement? Since you complained that paper records were
so hard to audit, I expect that you will want to automate the new system. How many
millions of dollars are you going to ask for to buy the necessary software, computers,
and other hardware?
Would those millions be better spent on police work?

Do you intend to emulate Chicago’s aggressive registration scheme that requires
re-registration every year? Given Chicago’s violent crime rate, don’t you
feel that Chicago might not be a good role model?

It must be painfully obvious to the Chief that a favorite anti-gun tool is worthless.
The handgun registration program did nothing to reduce violent crime in Washington,
DC. No crimes were solved using the information gathered. Evidently, no crimes
were committed with those registered guns.
Or, if there were, the registration list was of no help.

Yet, despite the failure of gun registration to contribute anything of value to
crime fighting, crime solving, or public safety, the city’s lawmakers intend
to pursue another worthless gun registration scheme as a part of their revamped
gun laws. It would be too much to ask of rabid gun-grabbers to actually use some
common sense and consider the effectiveness of the laws they intend to pass. Gun
registration, as with ballistic fingerprinting and other nonsense requirements,
may not reduce crime or make the public safer, but those laws and requirements make
the officials feel better.

Only one reason exists for government to require gun registration – potential gun
confiscation. That scenario has already happened in California where so-called
“assault weapons” were first required to be registered, then banned and
confiscated. It can’t happen here? It already has.

Criminals do not register guns. Felons do not register their illegally-held guns.
In fact, requiring a felon to register a handgun is a Constitutional violation,
since government mandated registration would require a felon to self-incriminate,
a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The only people who will register their guns
are law-abiding citizens.

The worthless DC gun registration programs, past and future are not about gun control.
These programs are actually about people control. The people of Washington, DC
deserve better.

To paraphrase Voltaire, common sense among gun grabbers is not so common after all.

Charles Bloomer is a Contributing Editor for Enter Stage Right. His website is
Liberty Call U.S. C 2008 by Charles Bloome

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !