You really have to love these guys...
NewsMax.com
This is getting scary.
Senator Proposes National Handgun Registration
Stephan Archer
Saturday, Aug. 26, 2000
Having a familiar ring to the "voluntary" income tax forms Americans fill
out each April, gun control advocates are proposing a new bill that would
force gun owners to fill out a registration form and pay a fee for all handguns
in their possession.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., introduced the Handgun Safety and Registration Act,
or S.2099, because "the police should not be limited in their ability to track
down criminals." Reed is confident his bill will be approved either by this
Congress or the next.
If the bill passes, all handgun owners in the United States would be required
to obtain a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms registration form and
FBI fingerprint form FD-258, either from their local chief law enforcement
officer, by mail from the BATF, at a U.S. Post Office or from a regional
BATF/Treasury Department facility.
On the registration form, the registrant must affix a 2x2 inch photograph of
himself taken within the last year. The completed form is must then be taken
to the chief law enforcement officer, who then completes the "Law
Enforcement Certification" portion of the form.
The fingerprint card form must also be completed with the assistance of a
person qualified to do so, and a check for $5 must be made out to the BATF.
All completed forms and tax payments are then mailed to the BATF.
Under the bill, a $50 tax would also be imposed on the making of all
handguns. It is most likely this cost would also trickle down to the gun buyer.
Currently, only owners of machine guns, short-barrel shotguns and
short-barrel rifles, silencers, bombs, grenades and other specialized weapons
have to go through this procedure as is required by the 1934 National
Firearms Act. However, if S.2099 passes, handguns will become an additional
item of the NFA.
In an effort to assist law enforcement agencies with their ability to track
down criminals who use handguns, the bill, introduced Feb. 24, would also
create an online database of all registered owners.
However, the bill doesn't take into account all the nonregistered gun owners
- namely, criminals - who won't be part of the database. Thus, the
effectiveness of the online system is in serious question.
John Velleco, a spokesman for Gun Owners of America, told NewsMax.com
it is a scary notion to think the government would have online information
for all registered gun owners nationwide, because it is those who register their
weapons who are the upstanding citizens. He believes the bill won't pass.
"Even if it was a Democratic Congress, it would be almost impossible to pass
this," Velleco said. "The scary thing is, every once in a while, lightning does
strike and something like this can just be tacked onto a 'must pass'
appropriations bill. Then suddenly, we wake up in a different country."
But although the effectiveness of the bill and its survival in Congress are in
serious question, Reed believes it will work.
"This bill will limit criminals' access to guns. Background checks will finally
be performed on all handgun sales," Reed said. "Before a handgun owner sells
a gun without registering it, they will be forced to think hard about the crime
they are about to commit and the 10 years they may spend in prison."
Sarah Brady, who chairs Handgun Control Inc., thinks it is about time
Congress considered legislation such as S.2099. Her husband, Jim Brady, was
seriously wounded by a gunshot wound to the head in March 1981 when John
Hinckley tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Brady was the
White House press secretary.
"For far too long in America, too many gun crimes have gone unsolved, and
murderers are getting away with murder because law enforcement doesn't
have a clear paper trail to follow," Brady said. "Requiring handguns to be
registered - like we register cars - would help law enforcement officers do
their jobs, solving crimes."
Commenting on Brady's statement, Velleco said he thinks it is absurd to
compare guns and cars because unlike gun registration, which is a
crime-fighting device, car registration is a revenue-making law that helps
maintain America's roads. He also told NewsMax.com that any kind of gun
registration would be "ludicrous because it's predicated on the assumption
that the criminals are going to register their guns."
Velleco added that if gun control advocates truly want to treat guns like cars,
everyone would be able to buy a gun, just like anybody can go buy a car. One
only has to license and register a car if people decide to drive the vehicle on a
public road or highway. Hence, Velleco suggested a similar solution with
guns. If people want to carry a concealed weapon in public, that, like licenses
to drive a car in public, should be registered. However, if people opt to keep a
gun in the house, nobody - not even the government - needs to know about
it.
In praise of the online system the bill would create, Kristen Rand, director of
federal policy at the Violence Policy Center, said, "Sen. Reed's legislation
brings a complicated and cumbersome handgun tracing system out of the
dark ages and into the 21st century with instant online access."
Velleco suggested the current handgun tracking system could be complicated,
but added: "Freedom should be very uncomplicated. As a citizen, you should
be able to go buy a gun, just like you go buy a car or buy a television. You don't
need to ask Janet Reno's or Bill Clinton's permission to buy anything else."
Summing up what he believes to be the real agenda of this bill and similar
bills proposed by gun control advocates, Velleco said, "The situation here is
that you have zealous, extremist, freedom-hating radicals who don't want
and don't think that citizens should own guns. Period.
"They can masquerade it as waiting periods and background checks and
registration, but the bottom line is they hate guns. They think the
government knows what is best for people, and they want to create a situation
that would have been odious to the Founding Fathers in that only the people
that work for the government have the guns."
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~USP
"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998
