Posted on 03/10/2014 8:28:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
>The latest gun control law in Connecticut has crossed a very frightening line. A standoff has been created between the government and tens of thousands of gun owners now considered felons. It marks the beginning of an Orwellian new phase. Gun owners saw it coming, as evidenced by their recent adoption in recent years of the defiant expression “molon labe.” The phrase originated from Spartan General-King Leonidas, who reportedly responded with “Come and get them!” to Persian Emperor Xerxes’ demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans fought valiantly, but were ultimately defeated. With the prequel to the Hollywood bestselling movie 300 just released last week, Americans are now even more aware of the phrase.
Until now, gun control laws hadn’t mandated the confiscation of weapons; generally, banned guns were grandfathered in under previous laws so their current owners could continue to legally own them. The Connecticut law changes all that. Passed last year in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, SB 1160 bans so-called “assault weapons” - certain rifles, more recently known as AR-15s, that have been singled out based on purely cosmetic criteria - and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
The firearms have been banned based on how “scary” they look, not their actual usage in crimes. According to a study from the BATF that came out a few years ago, none of the top 10 guns used in crimes in the U.S. were so-called assault weapons; they were all pistols or revolvers. In fact, the #5 gun used in crimes was a shotgun, which Vice President Joe Biden advised Americans last year to use for self-defense.
The only way to legally retain one of these newly banned firearms or magazines in Connecticut now is to register it - but most gun owners do not want their name on a government list. They are well aware that a list of gun owners can someday be used by the government for confiscation. If gun owners didn’t register their firearms or magazines prior to the December 31, 2013 deadline mandated by the legislation, their firearms will be subject to confiscation and the owners considered guilty of a felony.
So far, it appears that the vast majority of gun owners affected by the legislation did not register their guns prior to the December 31 deadline, making between 50,000 and 350,000 gun owners felons. This is frightening, considering the law doesn’t just make the violation a misdemeanor, it makes it a felony, which could result in a prison sentence. Fewer than 50,000 gun owners registered their firearms by the deadline to comply with the law.
Gun owners who sent in their applications for registration after the deadline have reported already receiving letters by the government instructing them to get rid of their guns. The Hartford Courant notes that the government has records of gun owners who went through background checks in order to purchase AR-15s. The government could potentially go after any of those gun owners who failed to register their guns.
There is shock that gun owners are showing defiance. "I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register," said Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, the ranking GOP senator on the legislature's public safety committee. "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem."
On January 30, Federal District Court judge Alfred V. Covello upheld the law in Shew v. Malloy. While he admitted that it placed a substantial burden on the Second Amendment, he claimed that it “substantially related to the important governmental interest of public safety and crime control.” It is astonishing that a judge would use that as justification, considering even Congress sunsetted the federal assault weapons ban due to a lack of evidence showing it was effective.
Many judges come up with rulings based on their personal political views, or are pressured into a certain decision by outside special interests. Judicial activism is nothing new. Judicial activists have successfully forced a tortured, restricted interpretation of the Second Amendment over the years, in order to diminish its validity. Covello’s disappointing decision is currently being appealed, backed by the powerful NRA.
Trying to prosecute 50,000 to 350,000 gun owners would be insanity. The liberal activist politicians who passed the foolish legislation in response to an emotional response to the Sandy Hook Shooting do not represent the will of the people who elected them, who want the Constitution upheld. In many ways, the Second Amendment is our most important right, because without it, we cannot protect any of our other rights. There is a reason why it is the Second Amendment, not the 30th Amendment.
Requiring gun owners to register their firearms puts them on a fast track with sex offenders, who are required to register with the government so they can be monitored for the rest of their lives. If gun owners fail to register for tracking, they are then treated like criminals, just like sex offenders. This is bizarre, considering lawful gun owners are merely patriotic Americans concerned about protecting their cherished rights. AR-15s aren’t guns used in crimes, but are popular guns for self-defense and target shooting.
Connecticut Carry, a leading gun rights organization in the state, is daring the government to come after gun owners. The stage is being set for massive civil disobedience unless the law is changed. Many prosecutors and law enforcement officers are not going to uphold a law this heavy-handed; nevertheless, this ill-conceived legislation, pushed through by gun-control activists, is going to pit many law-abiding law enforcement officers against thousands of patriotic, American freedom-loving gun owners. It is terrifying that here in America, innocent gun owners would be put in the same category as sex offenders, turning them into felons. Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy (D), who signed SB 1160, seems to have become another King Xerxes. This time around, will the Spartans in Connecticut prevail?
Sorry if I misunderstood your post.
Yeah, they might try that.
But it won't withstand legal challenge...at least on appeal.
Nobody can prove these folks have those weapons.
Now, I will say this: For you guns owners in the midst of child custody and/or divorce fights...move, and move now. Take your weapons with you out of state.
If you ex or one of your deluded kids swears they saw the weapon in the house, you're had.
Could also be a neighbor or "friend" or sister-in-law etc.
Prime affiants all.
Could always boycott Connecticut, but what is there to boycott? :-)
“If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don’t follow them, then you have a real problem.”
If, with the stroke of a pen, you pass laws that violate the Rights granted by the Creator to all mankind and turn upwards of a third of a million people into felons then you have a real problem.
Can you say “overreach”? I knew you could. This one’s gonna blow up in their faces.
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Yeah, just like Prohibition, except that involved the entire populace. I’ll never forget listening to my kindly, mild-mannered grandfather about 35 years ago, talking about mixing up booze in a still that he made. I was shocked - but he told me that people had been drinking for thousands of years, and he wasn’t going to let a law passed by a bunch of nosy do-gooders change his life. He also informed me that lots of friends and family did the same thing.
Now what do you think that such an idiotic law did for the respect that people had for the law in general? It crushed it, that’s what. Just as the 55 MPH limit made me have contempt for the law in the early 1980s, after there was no fuel shortage at all, and the safety Nazis got in on the game of trying to regulate everyone’s behavior.
And then I started buying guns...and my transformation into someone who has utter contempt for the law and the hypocritical, corrupt SOBs (or just plain Bs) that pass said laws, was complete. Now I obey laws that I believe to have some or any basis in morality or practicality, and those that can land me in big trouble if I am caught violating them. When the government passes laws and exempts itself and its functionaries, when the functionaries are caught and not prosecuted, and when our ELECTED SO-CALLED REPRESENTATIVES themselves speak of their contempt for the very Constitution that created their office...at that point I will do as they do.
I have to tell you, it took quite a bit of doing for me to get to this point - I grew up in a law and order household, with my parents being products of the late-40s and early-50s, where the government basically did no wrong. Nice work, morons.
I am only pointing out what is within my current knowledge. I am not going to try to guess how a homeowner can determine who is at the door.
There were two parts to that battle, the land and the sea.
Leonides lead the land battle, Themisticles lead the sea.
Leonides lost only because of betrayal.
Themisticles won outright.
Absolutely correct. Ditto federal efforts at the same. These scum ride the tiger.
Excellent!!!!
“The Hartford Courant notes that the government has records of gun owners who went through background checks in order to purchase AR-15s.”
This caught my attention. I thought the information from background checks had to be destroyed. Anyone know different?
In the last failed Federal gun control bill, the 2nd Amendment Foundation added an amendment which added a penalty for not destroying the background check data.
The current law states that the background check data must be destroyed but there is no penalty for not destroying it. Anyone else familiar with this?
“They don’t have laws like that in Texas, do they?” I told her, “No, Texas is in America.”
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Fair enough, but America is not part of the Untied States, and neither is Texas.
It will actually be "many Just Following Orders farce enlawment orifices against thousands of patriotic, American freedom-loving gun owners".
Everything done in Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany was completely legal.
Ok, so what happens the first time they come to the door and the home owner resists giving up a weapon. Do they beat the shit out of him and cart him off to jail, shoot him or back down?
The author says "generally", then you rant about his not mentioning NJ.
Do you know what the term "generally" means?
Yes, go to the CT courts and beg the black-robed clown-tyrants for permission to sue their Tacticool-clad gunthug enforcers. After licking their boots, of course...
I'm trying to picture one of the Founding Fathers doing that, and can't quite wrap my head around it.
The level of defiance makes me proud of my fellow gun owners. The politicians really screwed the pooch on this one.
Defenders of the Alamo, also.
And Waco.
Is it a coincidence both are in Texas?
In the next decade or two? That’s hilarious... we don’t have a decade or two, we might have two years before everything is up crap creek without a paddle. We have a very small window to right the ship or it’s sunk.
CT will do it that way as well.
There was one officer who made a statement about how he can’t wait to kick in a door, but thus far, at least publicly, he is heavily outnumbered.
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If the police are rash enough to kick in a door, this officer should be the first in the LEO line & do the kicking since he’s publicly volunteered .... see how “brave” he actually turns out to be (and how long he lasts).
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