Hey, our automobiles are registered, what’s wrong with registering our guns?

Well, for one thing there is little fear the government will ban a certain type of car and demand that you relinquish yours. At least not yet. It’s true that the Pols are saying they won’t use registration to confiscate firearms, but why should anyone believe people with a demonstrated record of breaking promises right after they make them?

Everywhere gun registration has been accomplished, from Nazi Germany to present day in the UK, the promise not to confiscate guns after registration has been a broken promise almost the next day. The reason may be that the whole plan from the beginning is confiscation, and that registration makes it easy to do it. If there is a handy record of all the guns an individual owns it’s easy to show up at this door with the list in hand and demand he hand over those specific guns.

It is instructive to ask this question: If confiscation is not what they want, why do the want registration? Is there any independent law enforcement purpose to registration? Don’t say it is so when a gun is used to commit a crime they can easily find the owner of the gun. They can already do that with serial number tracing. John Hinckly’s gun was traced to him within 18 minutes after he shot President Reagan. Within 18 minutes the Secret Service knew the gun store in Texas where he bought gun, and the date and time he bought it. They’ve been able to trace serial numbers of guns for decades. So again, just what law enforcement purpose is served by registration? The answer is simple. There is none. Except one — ease of confiscation.

Without the list, they would need a warrant to search a private home and they couldn’t get a warrant to search your home without probable cause to believe you’ve committed or are about to commit a crime with your gun(s). Since it is law-abiding citizens whose guns they want to confiscate, there is never going to be sufficient probable cause to sustain a warrant. That is, unless they have a list of every gun you own and its serial number. Then all they need do is pass a law banning a particular type of firearm, and if a gun of that type is registered you — viola, they can demand you hand it over.

The big thing every citizen who cares about their personal liberty should never forget is that liberals always proceed incrementally to get what they want.