Activists outraged: Registration does lead to confiscation

Police in Buffalo, N.Y. are demonstrating what gun rights activists across the map have been saying for years – and gun prohibition lobbyists have been denying – about how registration leads toconfiscation as they will reportedly begin confiscating guns legally owned by people who have recently passed away, according to a report yesterday on Fox News.

The report has outraged members of at least one popular firearms forum, Defensive Carry.com, along with the New YorkState Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA). It is news that puts the lie to claims by anti-gunners that gun owners needn’t be concerned about gun registration. That potential is why many gun owners in Washington fought Initiative 594, the 18-page gun control measure that will expand the state’s pistol registry.

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UPDATE: The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has weighed in, calling the effort “unconscionable.”

“This is the kind of behavior one might expect in a police state, but not the United States,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “From now on, no gun control zealot will be able to dismiss and ridicule the concerns of law-abiding firearms owners that there is no reason to fear gun registration, no matter what form it takes. This explains why gun owners are opposed to registration and other forms of record-keeping and permit laws.

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The seemingly ghoulish plan in Buffalo will apparently send cops to the homes of grieving, law-abiding families – while criminals continue to commit crimes – to grab the guns of recently-departed firearms owners, the Fox story intimated. NYSRPA President Tom King told Fox News that the police have a little secret about these gun grabs: “They’re quick to say they’re going to take the guns. But they don’t tell you the law doesn't apply to long guns, or that these families can sell [their loved one's] pistol or apply to keep it.”

According to Fox News, “The state law says that if the permit holder dies, the estate has 15 days to dispose of the guns or turn them in to authorities, who can hold the weapons up to two years. LoHud.com reported that violation of the law by survivors is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine.”

Under I-594, which passed in Washington State last week, someone who comes into possession of a handgun due to the death of the owner has 60 days to “either have lawfully transferred the pistol or must have contacted the department of licensing to notify the department that he or she has possession of the pistol and intends to retain possession of the pistol, in compliance with all federal and state laws.” Thus the state pistol registry is expanded, but so far, Washington does not have a law like New York’s, which has been around for some years.

Evergreen State gun prohibitionists vowed on Nov. 5, the day after passing I-594, that it was just the proverbial “first step” and they had other things on their agenda. Such things as bans on so-called ‘assault weapons” and standard-capacity magazines, the erosion of state preemption and even a rollback on concealed pistol licensing to an arbitrary New York-style “may issue” rather than the state’s long-standing “shall issue” requirement have long been on the wish list.

It is no wonder that gun owners in Nevada are alarmed, and gearing up for a brutal fight following the delivery of more than 250,000 signatures on a petition calling for so-called “universal background checks” in the Silver State. That petition drive is supported by Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying group.

Gun confiscations in Buffalo weren’t the only alarming news this week from Fox. On Wednesday, the network reported about Jack McCauley, now retired from the Maryland State Police, who contended in a court affidavit that the administration of anti-gun Gov. Martin O’Malley purposely misled the public about the state’s Firearms Safety Act of 2013.

According to the Fox report, McCauley, who served in the police firearms licensing division, was under political pressure not to answer questions about the Act’s effectiveness as a crime-prevention tool. He accused O’Malley’s office and the mainstream press of “intentionally lying to people,” and now he’s apparently trying to clear the record.

Omalley's would-be successor Anthony G. Brown was defeated Nov. 4 by Republican Larry Hogan. Maryland gun owners are hoping the law, which banned so-called “assault weapons” and placed new restrictions on handgun buyers in the state, gets reversed on Hogan's watch. That will be up to the legislature. A lawsuit to overturn the law was short-lived, so now the only option is repeal.

Following their Evergreen State victory, gun prohibitionists are ambitious. They already have a beachhead in Nevada, and are looking at other states to spread their brand of gun control. If rights activists hope to be successful, they must be willing to do more than exhibit righteously indignant chest thumping on Internet forums. Washington taught them that.