Many gun owners don’t want to be in a permanent database for merely exercising a constitutional right, and fear that if the government ever were to seek — in an unlikely scenario — to confiscate guns, a registry would be a necessary prerequisite.
"An unlikely scenario"? Ha.
IBD Editorials
U.S. Agrees To U.N. Global Gun Control
Posted 04/04/2013 06:09 PM ET
Global Gun Control: Despite a prior Senate rebuff, President Obama will likely sign and push a treaty embraced by the world’s oppressors and thugs who fear armed citizens.
The treaty’s prior rejection by the Senate 53-46 in a nonbinding test vote as part of the budget debate in a body where a two-thirds vote to ratify is required would seem to doom the United Nations pact endorsed by the Obama administration.
However, the president will likely sign it and, as is his custom these days, try to enforce key provisions by stealth, executive order and by “common-sense” regulations and restrictions.
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Not a bad article. I think they left out the most important cost, though it is implied:
The tremendous chilling effect on the exercise of an expicitly Constitutionaly protected right.
Every year, over a hundred thousand citizens are denied their rights by the current “background check” system. It denies Constitutional rights every bit as much as literacy checks on voting or poll taxes, probably much more.
We know that over 150 thousand people are denied the right to buy a firearm each year. Most of those are false positives, which is why out of 73 thousand denials in 2010 by the Federal government, there were only 44 prosections. There has not been a study on how many, exactly, of the 150,000+ background checks are false positive, but all the anecdotal evidence that I have gathered indicates that the vast majority of them are.
I may like the idea of “background checks” but it is a direct violation of our constitution. Our founding fathers considered the larger issue of liberty (versus tyranny), plus the natural right of man to seld-defense (including defense of family and community). A 100 percent perfect world being impossible, our founders decided on the best possible outcome, namely that the government may NOT infringe the citizen’s right to arms. The benefits of this approach still (some would say especially) make sense today.
Voter registration must be used as a model for firearms registration or the whole mess will be deemed as “unconstitutional”. You can’t charge anyone a “fee” to register for the right to vote. How can you charge anyone a “fee” for their right to own a firearm? You can’t do a background check on anyone desiring to exercise their right to vote. We have them sign on the dotted line and take their word for it that they are a US citizen. How can it be constitutional to do background checks on anyone planning on exercising their right to keep and bear arms under the Bill of Rights? That is unconstituional. Also, under the Motor Vote Fraud Act, ATF would be required to offer all gun owners the opportunity to register to vote and track that these offers were made to the gun owners. Americans need to push to make sure that gun owners are treated the same as those applying for welfare and those registering to vote. The right to keep and bear arms is one of our civil rights.