Dear Ben: The reason we dislike Gun Registration is, among many others, the application of Malum Prohibitum to a Constitutional Right.
OK, I can hear you blinking all the way here, lemme help you.
Malum prohibitum (mal-uhm prohibit-uhm) adj. Latin meaning “wrong due to being prohibited,” which refers to crimes made so by statute, compared to crimes based on English Common Law and obvious violations of society’s standards which are defined as “malum in se.”
You see, Gun Ownership is not bad because guns are not bad, they just are. What some people do with them a different thing, but you punish the individual and not the inanimate object because…. well it is inanimate! But you guys keep trying to ban them and confiscate them as if they were alive and letting criminals go which don’t make a lick of sense.
When things were not looking too good on our side and laws were being passed left and right against gun ownership, one detail fought to death was to avoid the registration of guns because, if there is no central database, the Government will have a nasty time trying to figure out who owns what where. Now, if the Government still wants to confiscate guns, it will have to proceed to piss on the rest of the Constitution and go house by house eschewing the Fourth Amendment which will undoubtedly piss of several million people who in turn will demand to have their grievances redressed which the Government in turn will also have to piss on.
And, of course is the matter of people not surrendering their weapons peacefully to the authorities. So basically by not having a central database of guns and gun owners which might tempt an idiot in the White House or a collection of idiots in Congress to decide “We are becoming a Kingdom” we are actually saving lives (even yours) and the Republic.
All in all I see it as a worthy cause, don’t you?
PS: Ben, we miss you in diapers Dude.
The only reason for registration is when you are planning on confiscation.
“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
I can still hear him blinking in confusion, so I’ll clear up one other point.
Malum in se (mal-uhm en say) adj. Latin meaning “wrong in itself”, which refers essentially to crimes that cause some sort of actual harm (i.e., murder), or create a significant actual danger (i.e., reckless endangerment), without good cause (i.e., self-defense).
Mere ownership, and even proper use, of guns is not wrong in itself, because it harms no one. No matter how many paper targets I fill with holes at 100 yards, my .308 Win. rifle harms no one (except maybe my shoulder if I shoot to many rounds in one session). The .45 ACP pistol I carry everyday harms no one, and will not except in self-defense. It creates no danger unless I take it out of the holster and point it at someone for no good reason – which would be a crime that falls under the doctrine of malum in se.
As for “what are [we] trying to hide”? Nothing. But we know well from observing history that registration – including such backdoor schemes to registration like you’re advocating – always leads to eventual confiscation. The best way to prevent confiscation is to prevent registration.
[…] that warm-and-fuzzy thought in mind, I would like to present to you this slightly-modified quote originally written by Ben Richards – you might remember the name from his… er… “colorful” Facebook […]