Convicted Felons?
Hey, registration is okay, right? I mean, if you have nothing to hide . . .
Remember this: you may be completely law-abiding today. Your daily routine, your hobbies and habits, your personal activities may all be completely legal.
Today.
And tomorrow, someone signs a bill into law, and your hobby, your property, your personal activities just became illegal.
No. I have nothing to hide. Everything I do is legal. Until someone passes a law that criminalizes some possession, some activity that I have come to regard as a worthwhile, legitimate, healthy passtime -- including just OWNING something.
I believe Ayn Rand remarked that the government creates criminals (essentially out of thin air) by legislating into existence crimes that no one can avoid committing, giving them their continuing reason to exist and the power to dominate.
I don't think a data bank of this sort is any sort of good idea.
I bought a perfectly legal pocket knife (the Buck 112 Founder's Edition) on sale yesterday. I believe the blade is shorter than 3 inches. Which is legal, just about anywhere that doesn't have wings or a judge.
Until the year 2012, that is, when all folding knives are reclassified as "concealable weapons" and outlawed, and all sales records in the last ten years that tie back to the buyers (because, of course, biometrics is universal) are used to target the known owners.
And compliance is entirely reasonable, because it's (all together now) FOR THE CHILDREN.
I have a better Idea.
Put an explosive collar on all legislators. Tie it to a computer-controlled broadcast system. The collar can only be activated by a verified supermajority (say, 75%) of the population in protest of any law authored or sponsored by said legislator that clearly violates a constitutional principal.
I'm not sure about higher court judges, but they might well also need a collar.
You would no longer need a recall vote.
Legislators would be hugely circumspect in the laws they submit.
Then, I think, we'd be controlling the right body of criminals.