Gun grabbers don't let facts get in the way of gun registration scheme

June 24, 6:43 AMCleveland Gun Rights ExaminerDaniel White

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One of Cleveland's complaints about Statewide Preemption, which has led them to sue the State of Ohio over it, is that it scrapped their mandatory handgun registration.

Our neighbors to the north have had an even more stringent gun registration scheme since 2001 despite the fact that "there is no convincing research showing that the gun registry has saved a single life."

Gary Mauser, professor emeritus, Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B. C. explains.

It is time to pull the plug on the long gun registry. The present Canadian firearms program was misdirected from the beginning. It focused exclusively on normal law-abiding people who happened to own firearms, rather than on violent criminals. It should come as no surprise that it hasn't been effective in either saving lives or in combating criminal violence.

It doesn't matter whether such laws are in Canada, Cleveland, Columbus, or anywhere else, the results are the same. Criminals don't register their guns, only the law abiding do. Criminals don't buy their guns legally, can't own them legally in most cases (statistics show that most violent criminals are repeat offenders who are therefore barred from owning firearms), and don't use them legally. They certainly aren't going to register them just because the law says they have to.

So, if only law abiding citizens are the ones complying with the registration law, what are we gaining? A stolen gun that is traced after a crime isn't going to lead back to the criminal, it is going to lead back to the last lawful owner. You'll know who the last owner was, which you can usually find out anyway since stolen guns are reported as such, but be no closer to finding the person who committed the crime in the first place.

Meanwhile, you've spent millions of dollars setting up and administering a useless program and cause additional expense and burden upon the citizens who do comply. For no good reason other than because you could.

The gun grabbers will tell you that there is nothing nefarious about gun registration, that is won't be used as a prelude to confiscation, but history shows the fears are justified. Confiscations and harassment are commonplace. Someone commits a crime with a Beretta 92? Well, then let's go harass the hell out of everyone who registered a Beretta 92 so we're "doing something" about the problem.

Gun registration fails in it's promise to reduce and solve crime everywhere it is implemented. It is time to put that gun control scheme to bed.