« Washington Naval Yard shooter | Main | Maryland suit »
"How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process"
From the Daily Kos, last December. Very instructive, a longer version of what Pete Shields, founder of what is now the Brady Campaign, told the New Yorker back in 1976.
The author starts by conceding that the gun laws being discussed will be useless: "Only about 5% of people killed by guns are killed by guns which would be banned in any foreseeable AWB." Magazine bans? "But it only takes one bullet out of one gun to kill a person. Remember the beltway sniper back in 2002? The one who killed a dozen odd people? Even though he used a bushmaster assault rifle, he only fired one round at a time before moving. He could have used literally any rifle sold in the US for his attacks."
He argues the solution is "to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing." But, he agrees, this is not politically feasible, and would lead to mass disobedience. The solution is to go step by step.
"The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them. " "Along with this, make private sales illegal." Next...
"Now that the vast majority are registered, we can do what we will. One good first step would be to close the registry to new registrations. This would, in effect, prevent new guns from being made or imported. This would put the murder machine corporations out of business for good, and cut the money supply to the NRA/GOA. As money dries up, the political capital needed for new controls will be greatly reduced."
Then ban concealed carry, try to make firearms and ammo hard to get. mandatory gun safes with police inspection to make sure. A national PR campaign against gun ownership, and restrictions on hunting.
By these incremental measures, "we can make the transition to a gun free society much less of a headache for us."
12 Comments | Leave a comment
...but there's that pesky Heller ruling stating firearms for self defense is a right. They'll need wait for the politics of the SC to change.
Aside from everything else here, the conclusive proof that the writer hasn't got the slightest bit of a clue is his assertion that registering all firearms, closing the registry and stopping any sale of new guns would dry up funding to the NRA (and other more uncompromising pro-gun groups). By the time they managed to start serious discussions of their "final solution", the NRA would have more money than the Democratic and Republican parties and their surogates combined.
Several small problems.
1: I and thousands of others would not register with a national registry.
2: Eliminate hunting, you needlessly kill hundreds if not more wild animals due too starvation.
3: Closing the registry would cause riots.
4: A firearm that I own is my personal property and a challenge to the supreme court would prevent making private sale illegal
4: This assumes that all gun owners are idiots and not fight this from the first step.
My 2 cents worth :-)
It's not that we cannot allow a registry because the government needs to know where every gun is. The government will never know where every gun is, no matter what it does. It's a technological impossibility.
We cannot allow a registry because it reverses the presumption of innocence. It makes simple possession of a firearm a crime, and every gun owner a criminal, unless there is a record in a government database, and that record hasn't been misfiled, lost, or deleted.
And if that is the case, we're going to see innocent people arrested, tried, convicted, or sometimes killed, simply because the government can't keep track of its own paperwork.
Look into the history of abuses with the NFA registry, to see what has happened, then multiply it by 100 times or more.
You can see the step process going on right now in California. Every year they add more steps to the list. It is clear they are trying to follow this approach. Whether it will succeed or not is yet to be seen.
Indeed the strategy set out there is exactly what is being done in most of the world.
It was the same for prohibition - just ban it and "we can make the transition to a gun alcohol free society much less of a headache for us."
It’s naive to think that the steps laid out would cause money to dry-up for groups like the NRA. Like the anti's action following Sandy Hook it would cause the NRA's membership and coffers to swell.
I also have to agree that if they forced a registry upon us, and then closed it to new entrees there would be riots.
As for the argument that the firearm is your personal property and a law barring you from selling it wouldn't stand Supreme Court scrutiny, well tell that to the farmers who are told when, where, and for how much they can sell crops.
I actually found that encouraging. Not the actual plan -- the writer is clearly a loon -- but because the comments were almost 100% against him. Even on a hardcore leftist website, people don't want to ban all guns.
That's progress. In the 70s and 80s, there were mainstream political organizations that were trying to ban all handguns.
interesting and unpublicized poll from Rasmussen shows how the gun grabbers have overreached...
1) The very first thing we need is national registry.
DONE. True, it's a back-door registry, but all FFL sales are recorded and presumably can be captured as a registry.
2) Make private sales illegal.
DONE. On a state-by-state basis, many jurisdictions requiring ALL transactions be through registered FFLs. More and more states are doing this, very few have been reversed.
3) Close the registry to new registrations.
DONE. Partially implemented, including importation of foreign firearms, new Class 3 and "assault weapons". It is more likely that registration of Class 3 firearms will be completely closed than it will be reversed and completely opened.
4) Ban concealed carry.
NOT DONE. One of the few where the pro-rights movement seems to be winning for now.
5) Make firearms and ammo hard to get.
DONE. The chilling effect of purchase restrictions requiring ID, verification and background checks is discouraging 1st time buyers from entering the market. Anyone now has to "think twice" before purchasing a firearm. Have you tried to buy ammo lately? Imported ammunition has dried up.
6) A national PR campaign against gun ownership.
DONE. Seriously, do I even need to spell this one out? An entire generation of children are being raised to think that making your fingers "look" like a gun, or even speaking the word is wrong.
7) Restrictions on hunting.
DONE. You have to have a license. In some states, lead ammo is banned. There is a strong movement to label hunting rifles as "sniper rifles". Seasons and zones are becoming more inscrutable, erratic, and are constantly changing. Training is required to even get a hunting license in many places. How hard would it be to require proficiency for shooting or tracking and charge an outrageous fee? Is PETA going away? (No.) Is the Humane Society our friend? (No.) Will the ecology libs take over the State Fish & Game/Natural Resource Departments? (Yes.)
They are WAY ahead of us on almost all fronts. It is an organized movement following the rules of parliamentary revisionism. Relentlessly, one step at time they are implementing all of the steps above.
How did that registry thing work out in Canada there Sparky? What was the non-compliance rate and how much money was poured down the rat-hole? Just askin'.