Hindsight from The New Gun Week August 1, 1999
Where Firearms Registration Leads
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
This may go down as one of the most combative years in the history of the long struggle to preserve the right to keep and bear arms. Just when you breathe a sigh of relief at the way the House of Representatives handled a bushel-full of anti-gun measures in June, we see the issue heating up again in Congress as well as the states.
Elsewhere in this issue we report on the situation in the California Legislature, and we have previously reported on passage of the new gun law in Connecticut. And, gun proposals are being pushed continuously in the general media as well as in state and local legislatures.
But the gun issue also surfaced again on Capitol Hill on July 13, the day before this issue went to press. House Democrats renewed their push for gun control by attempting to attach more gun restrictions to a routine spending bill, but were blocked by Republicans.
However, Associated Press reported, House GOP Whip Tom DeLay of Texas said Republican leaders were preparing to begin formal House-Senate compromise talks on gun control by next week, and all but promised that some of the Democratic proposals would be part of a final compromise on separate legislation. "I'm almost positive," he said as he labored to keep the spending bill free of gun-related amendments.
The proposals, defeated by the House Appropriations Committee, would have required safety devices to be sold with handguns and banned the importation of certain high-capacity ammunition magazines. Both provisions were approved by the House earlier this year, but died when the underlying measure was defeated in late June.
The third defeated Democratic amendment would have expanded requirements for background checks for sales at gun shows. That also was rejected by the full House in the earlier debate.
"Many of us feel so strongly about this issue that we're going to use every avenue available to us," said Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) as she and two other Democrats sought to attach the provisions to a bill funding the Treasury Department, the Postal Service and other agencies.
Passage of the bill by the committee came on a voice vote, but only after Republicans pushed through $240 million in cuts to meet the demands of Conservatives.
The gun control amendments were doomed from the start, but were advanced by Democrats as part of a strategy to press Republicans as often as possible on an issue that polls well with the public.
White House-backed gun control legislation cleared the Senate earlier in the year, it failed in the House when Democrats rejected the legislation as too weak, and Republicans opposed it for being too restrictive on guns.
DeLay, a member of the Appropriations Committee, attended the panel's drafting session only long enough to participate in the debate related to guns. He departed as soon as it was clear his side would prevail.
He said that despite delays, House and Senate leaders would begin formal negotiations soon.
Democrats said they weren't backing down.
"I believe we have an opportunity to take common sense steps to protect children from gun violence," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), arguing for passage of the provision relating to safety locks.
The proposal for background checks was rejected on a vote of 24-35. The two other proposals fell on generally party-line votes of 24-34.
Meanwhile, what Lowey and DeLaura consider "common sense" gun control, including registration, can be downright dangerous.
Registration-Confiscation
An Internet post by Russel Long of Tucson, AZ, helps explain what's wrong with firearms registration laws.Long recalls that when he was 18 years old and living in Brooklyn, NY, he obtained a license to own rifles and shotguns which authorized him to buy such firearms legally in New York City, of which Brooklyn is a part.
His first gun was a new AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, which was followed in subsequent years by a Ruger Mini-14, an HK 93 and a Colt AR-15. Each of the guns was registered with the New York City Firearms Control Board, in accordance with law.
Several years later, while then living in Montana, Long's brother, still living in NYC, forwarded mail from the NYPD, acting under a new city law that outlawed the previously registered guns, informing him that he had to turn in the four semi-auto rifles or prove that he had removed them from the city. (It should be noted that when the long gun registration law was enacted, New York City lawmakers claimed that the registry would never be used for confiscation.)
" I, being freshly filled with Montana-ness and not in the mood for any bureaucratic Gestapo mandates," notes Long, "wrote them back a letter saying, 'You want 'em? Come and get 'em.' "
Long reports that after some months, his brother called to say: "Hey, remember the guy we sold the house to? Half a dozen cops showed up on the porch the other day looking for your guns."
Long concluded his post by saying, "The next time someone says 'registration does NOT lead to confiscation,' you give 'em my email address and tell them to write me."
California and Connecticut
This anecdote is just one of many that chronicle what happened in New York City. In fact, that New York City registration-to-confiscation history is one I use a lot on radio-talk shows, debates and other encounters with people who ask, "What's wrong with registering guns? We register cars, don't we!" (Of course, we don't confiscate cars either without a valid reason-except perhaps in New York City, Chicago and Denver.)But the New York City story is not the only example of registration leading to confiscation in the US (there are other examples from overseas, the most notable being Nazi Germany). The 1989 California Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Act, the new California law and a new Connecticut law all further demonstrate what happens after you get a registration law.
When the Roberti-Roos law was passed, it prohibited sales of many semi-autos but provided for registration of some prohibited semi-autos already in private possession. Among the semi-auto rifles which one could register, after a background check by the state, were SKS Sporter model rifles with fixed magazines.
According to some reports, California did not maintain records on all sales, but it did on the SKS Sporter. Now, the state is running ads that tell owners of the registered guns that they must turn them in.
"If you own an SKS Sporter," the state ads say, "you can't sell it and you can't shoot it. You MUST turn it in before Jan. 1, 2000 or face criminal charges and confiscation."
Californians who surrender their SKS Sporters to the state will be compensated with $230 by the state-proof again that California is even more liberal than New York City, which didn't pay anything.
It is anticipated that the new and stricter California ban on "assault weapons" law-sponsored by state Sen. Don Perata (D-9th District) and awaiting new Democratic Gov. Gray Davis' signature-will lead to more confiscations.
Thoughts of Crime
But in Connecticut, a new scenario is created by legislation recently signed by GOP Gov. John Rowland. Under the new Connecticut law, police can seize firearms from the home of any person whom authorities believe may be considering or likely to commit a crime.Of course a warrant must be issued based on "probable cause," which can be the complaint signed by any two neighbors. The judge issuing the warrant may consider many factors, including threats of violence, domestic or child abuse, cruelty to animals and abuse of drugs or alcohol.
The Connecticut law, of course, could easily be used to resolve minor disputes with neighbors, to settle a grudge, or to impose the neighbors views on lawful gun ownership.
Many Americans will probably believe that laws like these are unconstitutional, and there may indeed be legal challenges to the new laws in Connecticut and California.
But there have been such challenges before with disappointing results. The court test of the earlier Connecticut "assault weapons" law a couple of years ago surprised everyone when the court-in a state with what was assumed to be a strong state constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms-essentially said that as long as the law didn't prevent you from owning all guns, it was constitutional.
Challenges to the California ban have been somewhat more successful, but have done little more than lead to another new law.
Judges of the caliber of US Circuit Court Judge Sam Cummings in the Northern District of Texas seem to be few and far between. One suspects that most take their orders at the same country clubs where the lawmakers are watered and fed these days.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com