During a debate over a proposed amendment aimed at removing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) ability to establish a national gun registry, U.S. Rep. Bonnie Coleman, D-New Jersey, said what most gun-banners think but are hesitant to actually say out loud.
“I think it is a wonderful idea that we have a registry of every gun that is owned by a civilian in the United States of America because then we could have, perhaps, less killings in our neighborhoods, less killings at our supermarkets, less killings at our concerts, less killings period in the United States of America,” Coleman said.
In truth, Coleman has never seen a gun control scheme that she didn’t embrace. She is an advocate for banning so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines,” raising the age for firearm purchasers, instituting “universal” background checks, legislating restrictive storage requirements and banning bump stocks, which the Department Of Justice did back during the Trump Administration and the Supreme Court recently overturned.
In 2022, she even voted for a federal extreme risk protection order, which would strip Americans of their right to due process if they were accused by just about anyone of being dangerous.
“Today, we passed another popular common-sense gun violence prevention measure,” she said at the time. “By allowing federal courts to issue extreme risk protection orders, this new legislation will keep weapons of war out of dangerous hands.”
Of course, most recently Coleman criticized a June Supreme Court ruling in the Chevron case that cracks down on federal agencies like the ATF making laws—like instituting a gun registry—rather than enforcing them.
“Yet again the Supreme Court’s right-wing extremist majority has obliterated decades of precedent and bestowed on itself new policymaking authority,” she said in response to the ruling. “It makes it harder for the nonpartisan policy experts and career civil servants who regulate industries from food service, to pharmaceuticals, to airlines and automobiles, to do their jobs and keep us all safe. This decision will touch every aspect of American life.”
While many won’t say it, gun registration is the true holy grail of gun-ban advocates, and there’s little question why. As we’ve mentioned here numerous times, registration always leads to confiscation—taking guns from us so-called “civilians,” as Coleman put it. Even the Brady Campaign, back when it was more accurately named Handgun Control Inc., said that registration should be a final step before banning handguns.
Of course, while bans and confiscation are the biggest problems with a gun registry, there are other reasons it should never be seriously considered. For one, federal law prohibits a universal, national gun registry. Additionally, eight states prohibit state-level gun registries.
And as NRA-ILA notes in a fact sheet about gun registration, such a registry wouldn’t prevent or solve crimes.
“Most people sent to prison for gun crimes acquire guns from theft, the black market or acquaintances,” the fact sheet states. “Half of illegally trafficked firearms originate with straw purchasers who buy guns for criminals. Criminals wouldn’t register guns or get gun licenses.”
In the end, anytime gun owners hear the word “registration,” they should immediately think “confiscation.” The two go hand in hand, and gun-banners know it—even if most won’t say it.
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