“Gun registration, let alone confiscation has, always and everywhere, fallen into that “unenforceable” category. We saw the same phenomenon with Prohibition, and we’ve also seen it with drugs. To insist, now, that Connecticut authorities try to chase down “scores of thousands” of gun owners (using background check records that don’t actually prove they still own the forbidden firearms) displays wild ignorance of the limits of government power. It also expresses disgusting deference to authority at the expense of any respect for liberty—an immature morality that sees no good beyond obedience to rules. And, it’s sheer lunacy.” – J.D. Tucille, reason.com

59 COMMENTS

  1. I think this is the key, and I’ve said the same before: “It also expresses disgusting deference to authority at the expense of any respect for liberty—an immature morality that sees no good beyond obedience to rules.”

    The problem with most anti-gun fanaticism is that it’s based in statism, where the anti-gun crowd truly believes that we are slaves to the state, and obedience to law of said state is the highest moral path. It’s disgusting to hear someone use “it’s the law” as an excuse for wrong-headed or tyrannical behavior. As freemen and freewomen in this country, it’s our RESPONSIBILITY to weigh those laws against our own moral code and determine whether they deserve our support and obedience in exchange for the stability they provide.

    Many times, they do. I don’t have a problem with, for example, requiring insurance to drive a car (although I wish there were exemptions for self-insurance for those who could afford it). I feel like it’s a stabilizing influence whose yoke I’m willing to bear in exchange for the knowledge that I’ll be protected if someone hits my car.

    But they don’t always, and then a citizen must choose how he responds.

    In the past, you may have been legally required to turn in a run away slave if he came to you for help. Does the legality of that act make it any more palatable or moral?

  2. Finally, someone who understands the leadership concept of “don’t give an order you KNOW will not be followed.

  3. This white paper discusses the compliance with gun laws, especially in Europe. The data shows that where guns are banned, a majority fraction of the newly illegal guns remain in circulation. The guns don’t go away; they just become illegal.

    (And in my opinion, become a convenient excuse for taking political prisoners, an expedient excuse for committing violence against political objectors.)

    “Gun Control and the Reduction of the Number of Arms”
    Dr. Franz Császár
    Professor of Criminology
    Faculty of Law, University of Vienna, Austria
    October 20, 2000

    http://www.gunownerssa.org/downloads/Csaszar.pdf

  4. Maybe they could go after & prosecute people that are actually hurting others? Or is that asking too much? I am concerned because the grabbers need to make a political statement & go after guns or risk a bunch of disallusioned sheep. We are at war now & the enemy wants us to turn in weapons, do they open at Dangerfields next. Like the king said, “those damn Colonists don’t need war weapons”.

  5. Never give an order you know wont be followed… Opening sentence of that article is so right. Legislators that sit in their chairs in their nice offices and think that just because they put it on paper that it shall be so are starting to learn that they dont have enough “Force” to enforce their will.

    One thing I always say when I hear about a new law, I ask “Are you willing to put a gun to someone’s head and kill anyone that disobeys this law?” Because that is what this is about. If its THAT important it should be a law and a felony. Would you do that to enforce Rape or Murder laws? Yes…. Would you do that to otherwise law abiding hundreds of thousands of citizens because you dont like there rifle? that is what it will come to.
    That CT paper is right that if you are going to have a law you MUST try to enforce it. If you dont enforce it, if you are not willing to put a gun to someone to enforce it, then it shouldn’t really be a law now, should it?

    • Laws in general all depend on voluntary compliance.

      Look at the underground economy, look at sales tax laws, there are plenty of laws that people choose to ignore.

      The politicians know that “forced” compliance is sometimes the only way to get things done. This is why you have police and why you have the department of education and post office both have SWAT teams.

      Its only the truly foolish and naïve politician who believes that just because he writes some words on a piece of paper that people will comply.

      • This is not STRICTLY true. If you are referring to laws in the “mala prohibidum” category, perhaps, but the majority, if not all, of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were included because they were considered Natural Laws. That is to say, they exist as a part of the natural world and not because someone took the time to write them down.

        As we consider the right to keep and bear arms a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right I think that stealing a line from Mythbusters is appropriate. Adam Savage: “Gravity, it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.”

        “The right to keep and bear arms – it’s not just a good idea, it’s a natural law.”

    • Well put and irrevocably true; In the end all power comes down to the pistol and the slap jack.

      Soccer moms and sweater vested intellectuals may voice concerns and the legislature argue and vote, clerks take notes and bills are written and passed but in the end, somewhere someone will have to point guns and swing sticks to actually enforce all these laws or they are for naught.

      There ought to be an enormous banner in every legislature saying something to the effect that no law should be enacted without the full knowledge and agreement that some citizens will be imprisoned and others die for violating them. If it’s not worth imprisoning or killing people over, it ought not to be a law.

      Then again, radical that I am, I think that legislatures ought to have to review existing laws and repeal one for every new law they wish to pass. Set the cap at whatever the current number of laws are and never allow even one more than currently exists. It would serve the function of doing away with archaic and outdated laws and force the legislators to really think it through before passing any new laws. It would also satisfy their need to ‘look busy’ and be ‘doing something’ all the time without further burdening the liberty of the citizens.

      As G.J. Tucker once said (probably anyway): No mans life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

    • This disconnect between legislating today and reality is multi-faceted.

      It exhibits itself in the drive fort “smart” guns down to auto mileage requirements (shouldn’t be too hard to double the mileage of an average car; all we need is a law) or other technological areas.

      Legislators actually think they are participating in the creative, evolutionary, and engineering process by “passing a law”. “It wouldn’t have happened unless we made the law first! Yeah!”

      More people making laws about things they don’t understand will eventually derail the train…

    • That usually shuts them up, and I know many a statist who compartmentalize this fact, and others who are blatantly in favor of holding a gun to people’s heads if they don’t agree with giving up certain rights or paying more taxes etc.

      • Would you be willing to point a gun or use a club on someone to stop them stealing your goods? Would you be willing to deny a fellow citizen their liberty by imprisoning them for theft? I certainly would to the extent that it’s legal to do so and so yes, shoplifting would still be a crime.

  6. A law should be put into place: “Any politician advocating gun control/confiscation will be the one to knock on the door themselves and attempt to collect the firearm”

  7. I like the idea of a boycott to this newspaper and all of it’s paid advertisers. This is an effective tactic of the left that should be utilized by the right.

    An email/letter campaign to advertisers from thousands of angry customers will make this propagandist rag think twice before turning its editorial page on thousands of CT citizens.

    • A boycott of a soon to be failed print newspaper is worthless. As is a letter writing campaign to them, because it fools them into thinking that they have a readership that can be counted on more that two hands.

      On the other hand, a letter writing campaign and threatened boycott of their advertisers will get results. Because as others here have pointed out, newspapers do not exist to report news, they exist to sell advertising.

  8. Yes, the idea of registration leading to confiscation is lunacy indeed. Because I’m sure that it has never been done before. Never in history has a government used registration to confiscate guns… oh wait…..

    Well, most assuredly never here in the US at least. Our government would never take away it’s citizen’s firearms and shove them in internment camps…. oh wait.

    Well, in our modern, enlightened society where we know better this surely could never happen. Places like California and New York would never, ever consider doing something like this…… oh wait…..

  9. This is the citizens shot across the bow. Open act of defiance and the magnification of the lunatic elected legislators.

    I think we’re going about this wrong. It’s time to pull a page from Gene Sharp’s “From Dictatorshipmto Democracy”. And bog down government. Slowly grind government into submission. For example start using texting to organize and just happen to corrdinate dropping off your kids late to school. 500 Tardy tots, & teenagers places an overwhelming administrative burden. Do that once a week and when asked why, respond 2A or RTKABA. Once coin becomes an issue they”ll figure out quickly what’s more important. A 30 round clip or attendance money.

    Find creative ways to bog government down.

      • True but eventually their bosses (who have control over the policy) will notice a hit to their budgets. Then someone doesn’t get paid and they get to decide who to let go.

        The bigger problem is it would probably takes months if not years of mass tardiness for this to happen, and most parents would probably not want to do this for that long.

        • Not really. In our district, fed money contributes 364 million dollars. The notice will be quick. They want to burden us, time to burden them.

      • That correct, but it’s work load they will not appreciate. And you may have missed the point….federal government provides attendance money to every student in the US. While they do not loose money for tardiness, work load is increased. If the state does not listen and keep kids away for a day, then they lose money. This allows scaleable dissent.

        Your tax dollars support all government. Governments responsibility is to preserve liberty, if they limit liberty then a citizen has the right to protest in any way possible.

    • What you suggest is civil disobedience and a form of anarchy but creatively applied it can work. However before we attempt to sabotage the government we have shouldn’t we first attempt to organize to change it via the ballot box? We already have tools for dealing with these sorts of things but it’s difficult enough to get people to show up at a school board meeting or even an national election with serious consequences. Given that I doubt seriously that getting any significant number of people to engage in civil disobedience is possible and since voting is a far more powerful tool I should think that it should take preeminence in our organizing efforts.

      • Ardent, I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Stalin which he may or may not have said but is nevertheless relevant:
        “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

        ― Joseph Stalin

        And this type of “voting” has occurred in recent elections.

        Sometimes you have to rock the boat.

        Cordially,

        David

        • I don’t believe that we have voter or vote counting fraud to any degree so significant as to alter national elections and certainly nothing like the situation in Stalin’s regime. I’m also disinclined to believe that any significant number of local school board elections are rigged.

          While it makes for a nice sentiment, to dismiss the power of voting in this way is irresponsible and counter productive. To dismiss it in favor of likely unachievable mass civil disobedience is just plain foolish. Which is more likely to alter the policy of a school, some ragged few intermittently delivering their children late (which will often result in detention for the child or even legal issues for the parents) or developing a well organized and focused campaign to elect only candidates who meet our selection criteria to the school board?

          I’ve had to learn how to cut through rhetorical defenses of others in my work and often the most powerful and efficient is to ask them what they think, then what they are doing, and there is a disconnect between the two in every troubled person I’ve ever met. So I’ll ask, how many school board campaigns have you assisted with and how many times have you ran for the office? How many times have you detected possible fraud in a school board election? How many times have you reported this fraud to the appropriate authorities? How many reporters have you contacted about this fraud?

          I’m going to go with the answer to all of the above is zero. Try actually doing something rather than giving reasons why it wont work. You might find that it actually works after all.

      • Ardent,

        Our democratic process is leading towards conditional rights. The point is we’re are a “significant number” and delaying a child’s arrival to school by 30 minutes is well within a parents things to do today.

        I was able to close a street near our school and the year effort, petition, Council meetings, School district meetings, traffic engineers and police taught me one thing – People power leveraged correctly….moves the needle.

        We must move off blogging & cause constructive pain. If we can figure out ballistics, physics, BRASS we can employ our collective to move the needle in our direction. Citizens hold more leverage than they are willing to used.

        I just threw out an idea, who offers another..

        • To Jus Bil and Mk10108: I already offered a powerful and effective idea that would not only span the civil disobedience you suggested but render it unnecessary. Take the same organization and zeal, direct it at school board elections and you would be the single most powerful lobby in any school board election ever.
          Rather than reactively attempting to stymy the actions of the officials elected in your community proactively electing those who share your ideals is both more productive and more honorable while at the same time being easier to accomplish.

          It’s juvenile at best to attempt to gum the works of local government without attempting first to elect a government which serves your needs and is responsive to your concerns. You sound more like angry children than the sort of people who can and will actually bring about change.

          I’ll ask it again, how many school board meetings have you attended? How many campaigns for school board have you assisted with, and how many have you run in?

          You’re talking about action that is detrimental to the entire organization of government without even attempting to realign said government with your values. That makes you nihilists and anarchists without the least support of reasonable cause nor of the vast majority of citizens.

          I would find it absolutely shocking that you were able to get more than a small handful of parents to deliver their children late to school once, let alone on the sort of repetitive basis it would require to do more than mildly inconvenience a school district. I know without a doubt that you could never garner the numbers it would take to effect a change in policy. You could not coalesce or demonstrate such support on any single day ever, let alone on an ongoing basis. Most parents are much more concerned about getting to work on time than changing the policies of their children’s schools.

          I feel your need to ‘do something’ but that is exactly what drives the leftists to such absurd behavior. If you would really change the policy at your local school district, become involved in the PTA and encourage other like minded individuals to do the same. Then cultivate and support candidates for school board who share your views. If this fails move somewhere where there are more like minded people and repeat the same. That is our political process and the means by which serious people affect their will on the process.

          You’re rhetoric and insistence on civil disobedience being the way forward are immature and useless until the democratic process is exhausted. If you only wish to talk a big game, carry on, but if you really want to change something, become part of the political process and advocate for what you believe. As it stands you’re a pair of loud voices talking in a vacuum and will accomplish absolutely nothing more than the vacuum contains: empty talk.

  10. Am I missing something? I thought Congress specifically prohibited the NICS system from creating a registry based on the background checks. If so, is Connecticut breaking the law by having such a registry or is the Courant uninformed as usual.

    • All FFLs must keep a bound book recording ALL of their sales. Type of firearm, serial number, address, SS number, and so on. But of course that isnt a registry (wink wink nudge nudge).

      • Bought a gun in Texas, sold it through an FFL to an old military buddy in Florida, went through all the proper channels for both states.

        He had the gun stolen, but didn’t keep the serial number and info, nor did he tell them he bought from me.

        I got a letter from police, in another state all together, notifying me that the gun was found. And, my name wasn’t anywhere in the Florida police report.

        Any log or record, of any kind, is in fact a registry.

        • Moreover, having a gun permit, carry license and/or hunting license is a very basic form of a registration.

          You have a gun permit, you must have something, you have a carry license, you no doubt have at least one handgun, you have a valid hunting license, you likely have a shotgun, rifle, or both.

          I’m not advocating for a national registry, just pointing out a few things.

  11. I like everything this guy is saying, but what is the deal with journalists and the Indian Jones hat?

      • It looks sharp with a good suit, dressed to the nines, it doesn’t look right with casual/business casual dress.

        • I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree, and here’s why….

          My standards for “business casual” and “casual” tend to higher than is generally accepted nowadays. The way I look at it the ONLY difference between “business” and “business casual” is that the jacket doesn’t match the trowsers. Business casual IS NOT a polo shirt and khakis. That’s casual.

          By that standard I think a fedora would work with business casual, but definitely not casual or below….so, I guess I half agree?

    • Comes from the 30’s when famous reporters, newspapermen, etc., wore fedoras. Walter Winchell comes to mind. Matt Drudge affects the fedora as a symbol of a hard, old time reporter. They used to stick a card with the word “Press” in the hatband.

  12. The leftist gun grabbers are working their plan – to constantly toot the horn of ‘reasonable gun control measures’ (wink, wink) until they have convinced the masses, particularly young people, that constant infringement of our 2nd Amendment right to KABA is just peachy. Unless 2nd Amdmt supporters counter this continuous onslaught of lies, misinformation & misrepresentation, we will find ourselves not only outnumbered but on the receiving end of never-ending & onerous gun-grabbing schemes. Take your kids, grandkids & their friends hunting and/or to the shooting range – teach ’em safety, marksmanship & enjoyment of firearms.

    I would propose a way to counter the gun grabbers howling – ask legislators to introduce a law exempting all firearms & ammo from sales taxes. OMG, watch the liberal heads explode from that one! Liberals try to nanny-state us to no end, but they simultaneously & hypocritically want a piece of the action. Cigarettes cause cancer, but we’ll tax ’em! Soda pop is bad, but we’ll tax it!

    The mortgage interest tax deduction is one of many sacred cows in the tax code for a lot of Americans. But where in the Constitution does it say we have a right to keep & bear a home? Why do people get a tax break on purchasing a home, but not on an item or items to which we have a Constitutionally-recognized right to own? I say ban sales taxes on all firearms & ammo!

    • You’re very right about the indoctrination of the youth and what it means to our future.

      I’ve written here before about my experiences with young people Re: guns. Even here in gun friendly and semi-rural southern Ohio my experiences with high school aged kids is that they know little about guns or gun laws but they tend to believe that the laws are more restrictive than they actually are. Given that they don’t come from the same families, churches or other organizations and the only thing they have in common are age and the fact that they attend public schools I’m going to say there is a good chance that their misconceptions are created and perpetuated by those schools.

      The common thread to my experience with the misconceptions of high-schoolers also tends to make me think that MSM exposure and school experience influence their thinking about guns.

      Most I’ve encountered share these beliefs, some to the degree that they will argue the point even though it’s clear that I have the greater understanding (and I’m old enough to be their father).

      The most common misconception I’ve encountered is that a permit is required to own a gun (there is no such restriction in Ohio what so ever). This is one that has been argued vociferously by a few teens even though none could cite from whom one must seek such a permit. I always tell them to ask a cop.

      The second most common is that it’s illegal to carry a gun about. (Open carry is legal throughout Ohio and it’s a shall issue concealed carry permit state.) I’ve actually had teens insist that it was illegal to have a rifle, unloaded, in the trunk of a car. (Just how they think one takes a gun from ones home to the place it will be fired is quite beyond me.)

      With such beliefs and misconceptions it’s doubtful that these teens will ever attempt to become gun owners. They tend to see it as onerously regulated and certainly too much trouble to bother with.

      What a difference a generation makes. When I was in high school in the early ’90’s most of my male classmates either had guns of their own or ready access to their fathers guns. We hunted, often had guns in our vehicles even at school and frequently when out and about after school would meet in some deserted place to plink together or stage informal competitions. I had a couple of girlfriends in HS who thought it was a perfectly acceptable date to go shoot for a while with the guys (though the girls tended to congregate among the vehicles to talk more than shoot) and then out for pizza or some such.

      Where we thought of guns as tools, sporting equipment, interesting objects in their own right and possibly a defensive weapon in the event it was needed. Youth these days seem to think of them as potentially dangerous objects that are fascinating but not something they should be involved with. If this trend continues unabated we very well may find that owning guns becomes about as popular and acceptable as owning slaves or abusing ones spouse.

      On the bright side of it there are still young hunters about and a friend of mine who operates a range and is a firearms instructor gets about 30 kids together once a month for safety and shooting instruction. However, if a significant number of teens in rural Lawrence County, Ohio think of guns as verboten objects now, imagine what it’s like in Connecticut or California or New York, then imagine what their kids are going to think about guns . . .

    • You can deduct the sales tax on guns and ammo on your state and local income tax, just as you can deduct the sales tax on your nice new tires. And you just deduct it as “Sales Tax.” So you’re griping about what exactly?

  13. A Russian saying is appropriate here.

    “The legislature pretends to make laws, so the people pretend to respect them.”

    Another applied example- I know a case where my grandma on my mom’s side carried a S&W snub nose back in the 70’s without an IL FOID card. Said revolver saved my mom’s life when my aunt’s psycho ex tried to kick in the door in their teenage years. Were it not for that act of civil disobedience, I might not be here now to type this.

  14. If we know it is political, why is it not stopped. I have known for a long time working with the Obama team that it is punishment to the white man. Plain and simple.

  15. I note that many people here poo-pooed my suggestion that mass civil disobedience was the way to go because in end the government was not willing to arrest, prosecute and possibly kill otherwise law abiding citizens. It is clear that the current Governor is not willing to do that.

    My son hosted some Polish and Chech chemists at a conference and the subject of guns came up. You would be surprised what Eastern Europeans had buried in the back yard even undet Soviet occupation.

  16. The part that makes me laugh is it is the same group of people expecting 100 million gun owners to voluntarily comply that insist in very loud voices that 15 million illegal immigrants cannot POSSIBLY be deported…

  17. Yeah we’ve all heard the BS that registration won’t lead to confiscation. The mantra of the cosmically STUPID it will indeed and inevitably lead to CONFISCATION it always does. And it has already. And those who sign up for the ACA or Obama care your info will probably be used to take away your rights at some point by some agency who deems you unfit.

    “The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
    Thomas Jefferson

  18. “an immature morality that sees no good beyond obedience to rules. And, it’s sheer lunacy”

    I think that is the most important part of the whole quote.

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