Is a National Firearms Registry Unconstitutional?

Myself ^ | 10/22/2002 | Myself

[MainFrame65]

I disagree with your examples here. Voting a secret ballot inherently requires identification of eligible voters and preventing ineligible persons, including those who have already voted, from voting illegally. A possible exception is a town hall meeting, where votes are cast in public, but you would still have to determine eligibility (by age and residency) even if just by personal recognition.

Driving cars (or carriages) is a privilege, not a constitutional right. We do have property deeds with recorded names, but the owners can be corporations.

You DO NOT need a passport to leave the USA, but you might have a problem when you arrive at your destination. And when you return, of course, you can reasonably be asked to prove your eligibility to enter this country. (In my opinion, we are far too casual about this.)

The second amendment recognizes an inherent right of the people, and tells the government not to infringe on this right. I can see a requirement to prove citizenship in order to establish eligibility, but identification or registration is infringement, and goes too far.

[Sam Cree]

"the idea that constitutional protections can be extended to anything that a majority of justices are willing to slap with a "LIBERTY" tag."

I'm mindful of your argument for separation of powers and specifically that justices do not have the power to make law.

However, I am also mindful of the fact that many of our founding fathers (I think James Madison for one) were against including a bill of rights in our constitution. They feared that government would decide that only those rights included in the "Bill of Rights" were protected from government. Their fears have come to pass, IMO.

[tpaine]

Well you've established that you're against due process, because you think it is being 'abused' by the courts in the special interest cases you favor.

- I, and the USSC Justice quoted, think it can be used to protect ALL of the bill of rights. -- ALL of our liberties.
Sorry, but the 'special laws' you want to enact will just have to pass the same constitutional tests that protect our gun rights.

[dirtboy]

I was not answering the question "Is the United States Supreme Court still stacked with leftist activists as it has been since the time of Franklin Delana Roosevelt."

Once again, they are the final arbiter, for better (seldom) or for worse (far too often) as to what is "Constitutional" - you are trying to answer the question from a logic, moral and intellectual position, I am simply trying to find some SCOTUS precedent in a realm nearly void of those qualities.

[therut]

I wish I could remember the USSC but it was back in the red scare time and the Feds tried to register people who were buying certain magazine and that was ruled unconstututional. I think one of the Judges said if you register or license a right it is not a right but becomes a privilage. And haven't some cities tried to force the seventh day adventists to get a license to go door to door and that was stuck down as unconstitutional? I think that was within the last year.

[Henrietta]

Of course, your opponent will cite numerous court cases that allow the fed to do pretty much anything it pleases under the interstate commerce or general welfare clauses.

Just FYI, Congress only has the power to tax and spend for the general welfare, not legislate for the general welfare. Things like "general welfare" are delegated to the states under their so-called "police power" to regulate for health, safety, morals, etc.

I agree, though, that the feds have been given free reign to do darn near anything under the guise of "commerce," and we have an intellectually corrupt federal judiciary who is happy to give the feds whatever powers they seek under the Commerce Clause.

[Henrietta]

I think the legal concept that makes gun registration unconstitutional is "prior restraint."

Ooh, I like that...for example, you can't tell the press, "You can't publish that, it's slanderous." Press has the right (limited in very few cases, like publishing the position of ships during wartime, for obvious reasons) to publish what it wants, and be liable for abuse of that right. Requiring gun owners to qualify and register is a restraint on the right to own a weapon. We don't make the press run their articles through a censor before publication, and we should not make gun owners put their names on a database "just in case" they might misuse a gun.

How am I doin' here?

[Henrietta]

We have to register for other constitutional rights; e.g., we have to register to vote, we have to go through the passport application process to exercise our right to travel, etc.

There is no right to vote in the Constitution. The right to vote is based on Equal Protection arguments, but you will not find in the Constitution any "right" to vote. Also, we have a Constitutional right to travel interstate, but we do not have a Constitutional right to travel abroad. If we did, we would not need a passport.

Presumably, to be well-ordered, the militia would have to keep its own register of members.

The actual term is "well-regulated," and "regulated" means "trained" in the parlance of the day.

[Bizhvywt]

Driving a car is a privilege. You don't have a right to drive a car. Privileges can be taken away; ie., you can lose your drivers license for cause.

Owning a gun is a right, in the Bill of Rights, and it is unconstitutional to take away the rights of a US citizen.

Gun Registration would be in violation of the IV Amendment regarding privacy and unreasonable search and seizures for non-compliance to registration.

Not even your car needs to be registered if it is only sitting in your garage.

[Henrietta]

Nice work. Now reconcile that with the fact it is legal to require a protest group to obtain a permit prior to a demonstration. The FR DC Chapter gets them all the time. So the courts have allowed regulation of 1st A rights.

Requiring a permit is merely a time, place, and manner restriction, and may not be exercised in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Content may not be regulated. (This is why the Nazis were allowed to march in Skokie). Because free speech is a fundamental right, the regulation must be narrowly tailored to prevent the type of harm that may come from the speech-related activity, and the regulation must be no broader than necessary. This is the "strict scrutiny" standard that is used by Courts to evaluate whether or not a restriction on a fundamental right is overbroad.

Using this standard, I can't think of any harm that would be prevented by a national gun registry, as a registry will prevent no one from misusing their gun.

Thoughts?

[Henrietta]

the very collection of such information could dissuade individuals from exercising their freedom of association. I don't see how a national database would be much different. The chilling effect on the exercise of the Second Amendment right would be just as significant, and just as unconstitutional.

I think this is a very good argument!

[M Kehoe]

"Is a national gun registry unconstitutional? If not, why not?"

No. Why? Because then we could register jesse jackson's, al sharpton's, sarah brady's, etc. mouths. Their mouths have been proven to be more deadly than firearms.

5.56mm

[copycat]

Mash here.

You need my essay on the meaning of the word "infringe." A national gun registry is an "infringement" on the citizens right to keep and bear arms. It is the historical precursor to and the enabler of confiscation.

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

Registering your car is unConstitutional. It is a violation of the 4th Amendment. You have a right to privacy. Registering your firearms is also a violation of the 4th and 2nd Amendments.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

how, from a 4th Amendment viewpoint, is registering your car different than registering your gun?

I don't see a connection to the 4th amm. in my answer but if were using care registration analogy then this is the difference.

You only have to register you car if you will be driving it on public roads and you do not if you are driving only on your property or private property.

Therefore the gun registration analogy ony fits if you are carrying in public not owning one and keeping it at home.

[ctdonath2]

Of course it is unConstitutional. The whole point of registration is to infringe my right to bear arms with the condition that I can't bear arms until said arms are registered.

[ctdonath2]

Some court has ruled that felons are not subject to firearms registration because that would be a violation of their 5th Amendment rights (registration would be self-incriminating proof of violation of "felon in possession of firearm" laws).

[E. Pluribus Unum]

How am I doin' here?

Sounds dead-on to me. Good job.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

...I am simply trying to find some SCOTUS precedent in a realm nearly void of those qualities.

tpaine does a pretty good job in post #41

[Wonder Warthog]

"Nice work. Now reconcile that with the fact it is legal to require a protest group to obtain a permit prior to a demonstration."

Local law--not state or federal. Local government can do lots of things that state governments and especially the Federal government are forbidden to do. If your local town decided it wanted to implement a firearms registry, it is perfectly free to do so, however, as an instrument preliminary to total firearms confiscation, it is useless, as such confiscation would have to be nationwide have any effect.