Laws requiring gun owners to report 'lost or stolen' guns blame the victims of crime

March 30, 3:02 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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One of the more recent strategies favored by the forcible citizen disarmament lobby is pushing for laws that require gun owners to report any lost or stolen gun to the police. The details of the legislation vary, with the penalties ranging from fines, to loss of gun ownership rights, all the way to imprisonment.  Such laws have been passed in seven states, fairly recently in many cases, and some municipalities have passed similar laws, in states that do not have that requirement.  Ceasefire Pennsylvania is working hard to pass the legislation there, or failing that, to overturn the state's ability to prevent individual cities from passing it.  With the gun haters' recent defeats in Illinois, I see a good deal of evidence to support the idea that "lost or stolen" legislation will be the next priority there, as well.

"But what," one might ask, "is so bad about requiring gun owners to report their lost or stolen firearms?  Isn't it just common sense to make such a report?"  Sure, but when did government's only legitimate role morph from "secur[ing] the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," to enforcing "common sense"? 

Also, I cannot help but be offended by the idea of laws that impose responsibility and obligation on the victim of a crime.  Such laws are, to my knowledge, unique in the U.S. in that respect.  There are few things more contemptible than the "blame the victim" attitude, and imposing any responsibility on a gun owner for what is done with a gun that had been stolen from him can be seen as nothing else.

Once we start down that path, how far will we go?  Is it such a great step from there, to laws (such as those in Canada) requiring gun owners to secure their guns in safes, and to be subject to inspections to confirm the security of their guns?

There is also the question of enforcement.  Such legislation typically requires the report to be made within a specified timeframe of discovery of the loss or theft, but how does one prove when a gun owner knew of the theft?  Sometimes, the law is worded such that the report must be made within a certain period after the owner "knew or should have known" the gun was stolen.  But when should the gun owner have known?  Are gun owners now to be required to check their gun safes periodically?

Finally, and perhaps most damningly, the one group of people who cannot be prosecuted under this kind of legislation is the group most likely to pose the real threat to society.  Felons and other people prohibited from owning firearms cannot be charged with failure to report a lost or stolen gun, because requiring them to do so would violate their Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination (for the crime of having possessed the gun in the first place).  I would argue that any law that can only be used to punish non-felons is a deeply flawed law.

The reason this type of law has become popular with the anti-rights crowd is that it is easy to convince the uninitiated that it is "reasonable," and that opposition to it is unreasonable.  The passage of such laws would be billed by groups like the Brady Campaign as yet another "good first step" (every gun law is called a "good first step"--gun control has a lot of "first steps").  In reality, not only is such a step far from the first, it is also in the wrong direction.