Do a Google search on whether registering guns is a good idea, and you will find enough to read to keep you busy for a very long time. Before long, however, you will realize that it boils down to motives.
One's first take might be that registration provides a record of where the guns are, and you have to know that in case they are misused. But those who are familiar with the manufacture and sale of firearms understand that there is no such need for registration.
When a gun is manufactured, it is engraved with a serial number. The law requires that a record be kept of its movement from manufacturer to wholesaler, from wholesaler to retailer, and from retailer to consumer. If a gun is used in the commission of a crime, and it is recovered and has not had its serial number filed off (a felony), it is a simple matter to trace it from manufacturer to last owner of record. For this reason, any law-abiding gun owner should immediately report to law enforcement when a gun is lost or stolen. If the gun is later used in a crime, you want to make sure there is a record of the date from which you no longer possessed it.
When I buy a gun, a record of the sale is filed with a law enforcement agency (where I live, it's the state police), and that is how the gun can be traced to me. And so it is the gun, not the owner, that is registered. The police can look up a gun and find out who is the last owner of record. In Pennsylvania, however, state law prohibits the state police from organizing the database by owner, and so the police cannot look up a person and find out what guns he owns.
The word "registration," in the vocabulary of gun control legislation, refers to registration of owners. This creates a database that can be used to find out who owns what. This yields two problems. The first is a matter of the purposes for which it can be put to use by law enforcement. The second is a matter of who else can gain access to the database, whether through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or just by computer hacking.
Recently a newspaper in New York state attracted much attention by using the FOIA to publish the names of registered gun owners in certain suburbs of NYC. Owners were greatly displeased, because they didn't want burglars to select their homes for possible theft of firearms. Those not on the list, however, might have even greater reason to be displeased, because publication made one thing clear about their homes: no guns here, so no reason to fear you'll be shot if you break in and someone happens to be home.
So, if law enforcement already has a registry of guns, and that can be used to track them if they are recovered after being misused, why do they want a registry of owners?
Gun owners all say the same thing in response to this question: registration leads to confiscation.
This has happened in Australia. Owners of certain firearms (notably semiautomatic rifles) were registered. When it was subsequently decided that these weapons were to be banned, police knew which (law-abiding) citizens owned them, and it was then a simple matter to round them up.
How about here in the United States? Owners must register in New York state. Some years ago, New York City decided to ban certain firearms (notably semiautomatic rifles), and this was made possible because a registry of owners existed. Owners were told they could turn in their guns, sell them to someone outside the city, or show proof that the guns had in some other manner been relocated out of the city.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is proposing a new ban on semiautomatic rifles. Her legislation also stipulates that current owners of the banned firearms may retain them but must register them. So the question is why owners should comply, if the only plausible reason for registration is future confiscation.
Oh, no, you might be thinking, that would never happen in the US, because we have the Second Amendment, and gun owners would never stand for that, and everyone knows that. But if there is no other rationale for registration, why propose it?
Consider this scenario. I happen to own several semiautomatic rifles. A crime is committed in my region. A semiautomatic rifle is recovered with its serial number defaced. Or there are simply eyewitness reports that such a firearm was used in the crime. Law enforcement officials have a registry of everyone who owns such guns. They should simply pay a visit to each and every one of them and ask to inspect their premises and make sure all registered weapons are accounted for.
Are you OK with that? Perhaps you are. Gun owners typically are not.
At this point it is unclear whether the requirement that "grandfathered" semiautomatic rifles be registered under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (the law that regulates machine guns) will survive in the version that is ultimately considered in the Senate. There is conflicting information about this on Senator Feinstein's Website. But this brings me to the question posed by the title of this essay.
The United States Constitution prohibits Congress and the states from enacting "ex post facto" laws. These are laws prohibiting something that was legal before the law was enacted and applying it retroactively. It is not always a simple, straightforward matter to determine if a law violates this provision of the Constitution. Some retroactive laws seem blatantly unfair but are allowed. For example, the county in which I live can decide that my house is worth more than the value on which it was previously taxed and expect me to pay the difference going back several years. I think that's ridiculous, but it's permitted.
So let's say I own a gun that is unregistered because it there is no requirement that it be registered. There was no such requirement when I bought it. Now a new law is enacted requiring registration. Possessing an unregistered gun was legal yesterday, illegal today. What I was doing was legal yesterday and now - without any change in my behavior, without any new action on my part - is illegal.
One could argue that the government is not retroactively making my action (actually inaction) illegal and punishing me for past behavior that was not illegal at the time. Rather, the government is simply telling me what I must do from now on.
But the argument will surely be made that a requirement for registration is practicable only if it occurs at the time of acquisition, and that an expectation that a person will study newly enacted legislation to assure compliance when he is doing nothing new or different - in fact, doing nothing at all - is unreasonable, and that such an expectation is tantamount to an ex post facto law.
Much will depend on how the law is written. If you possess an unregistered gun, will the government have to prove that you knew registration was required? If so, the law might well pass constitutional muster. If not, well, don't count on it.
I'm not an expert in constitutional law. And I don't even play one on TV. But if I'm choosing sides, I'm siding against this one.
Of course I'm also siding against it because I've seen no convincing rationale for registration other than subsequent confiscation, and I think the government should just not go there. Many people who advocate registration and bans simply do not believe in private ownership of firearms. I'm pretty sure Feinstein is in that camp. And that's OK. Just be honest about it, and we can have a spirited debate on that point.
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