Why does everyone seem to think guns need registration?

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People with no personal experience with a topic just "know" what they are told through various media. For a lot of those people one of those topics is firearms.

Movies, and worse yet, news, almost invariably say "the gun was registered to Jimmy" when any story involves a gun. Even in places with no registration. Who knows why.

I've even spoken with one "out of touch" gun owner (a coworker of mine; older woman who lives alone and evidently has a .38 or some sort for protection) who is dead convinced that her pistol is registered to her in the state of SC. There was no convincing her otherwise. Sometimes just smile and nod.

It is no different than any other topic that any of us may not be familiar with. I have a buddy who is into skydiving, and he hates the movie "Point Break" because he says the skydiving scenes are so bad and fake he simply can't watch it. I don't know the difference, because I know nothing about skydiving. To me it is just an entertaining movie.
 
It is a little different from skydiving or knowing that the "Tiger Tank" isn't really a Tiger Tank. There's a method to the mythology in this case.

If you can convince people that firearms are ALREADY subject to registration, then it's far easier to ACTUALLY subject them to registration. That's the plan, and that's the reason why we hear this over and over and over again in MSM and Sillywood shows.
 
Because some people thing that "registration" gives some authority control over guns. I've said for a long time now that as long as I get the same perks with cars I'll register my guns.

- Don't need an FFL to transfer a car, or even permission from an authority. Just have to pay the tax and registration changes.

- As long as you're licensed to drive, can operate a car on a public street at any time.

- As long as you're licensed to drive, can operate a car at 16 and I think own one, too.

- There are public and private works costing many billions of dollars enabling use of cars by the public. Let's funnel those gun registration tax dollars into public use for *enablling* lawful gun use.

But registration of vehicles hasn't made them any safer to own or operate. The only control it enables is tracking and that's usually only *after* an infraction.
 
Auto registration is completely different from the registration proposed for firearms. The state DMV is mandated to encourage safe driving on the public roads (they don't care about private roads), and most importantly to collect revenue from all their various fees. Having them register autos is the rough equivalent to having state F&G register firearms before they can be used for hunting on public lands. This is not what folks are thinking of when they want firearm registration. What they're proposing is the equivalent to having the federal EPA decide whether or not you really need a personal automobile.
 
One of my salesmen is an East Coast "progressive" who protests at rodeos and doesn't eat meat. The other is a Wyoming cowboy, and he has more guns than I do. Well one day Gunnie brings in his Kimber for show-n-tell. He and I were blushing over it when Veggie walks in and immediately questions, "IS THAT ILLEGAL?!!?". One of us turned and said, "No, its a pistol".

That was back when he first started working here. Now that the gunnuts have rubbed off for the last few years, he's been talking about getting a revolver for hiking/camping/etc.:evil: But he still protests at rodeos and won't touch any of the peperoni that I made with last year's elk.

Anyway, he's thinking about a revolver. He asked us a few times about which revolver is what, and he asked about the registration process. I told him that 'There's no such thing as registration, just buy it and own it'. He then asked, "Well what if I WANT to register it, how do I do that?".

Sometimes, people really just yearn for government control over themselves.
 
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It's just a perpetuated case of misinformation. I wonder if it's not a good thing, keeping those who are afraid of guns thinking that there's a registration process. It may prevent them from actively pursuing such an eventuality in mass.
 
As long as you're licensed to drive, can operate a car on a public street at any time.

- As long as you're licensed to drive, can operate a car at 16 and I think own one, too.
Click to expand...

And so, the antis will point to your logic and state that every gun owner needs to be licensed or else they are illegal. You don't REALLY want to go down that road, do you??
 
One angle I am suprised has not been tried, would have been simply to tax Gun ownership, which then automatically would require registration of all guns, to their owners, and for all transactions to be accounted for.

Possibly it was realized that people might not comply, and, that it would be impossible to enforce, and, would maybe be unconstititional as well.

Automobiles are 'registered' because they are Taxed.

Similarly with Real Estate, so called 'income' or other things which are taxed for being owned, or rather, for being sitting Ducks easy to impose Taxes on.


If there was a tax on owning a Computer, then they would have to be 'registered'.
 
Oyeboten said:
One angle I am suprised has not been tried, would have been simply to tax Gun ownership, which then automatically would require registration of all guns, to their owners, and for all transactions to be accounted for.

Possibly it was realized that people might not comply, and, that it would be impossible to enforce, and, would maybe be unconstititional as well.

Automobiles are 'registered' because they are Taxed.

Similarly with Real Estate, so called 'income' or other things which are taxed for being owned, or rather, for being sitting Ducks easy to impose Taxes on.


If there was a tax on owning a Computer, then they would have to be 'registered'.
Click to expand...
I think this is it. If it not taxed, then there's no need to register it, save for a few leftist venues that do it to discourage or prohibit ownership.
 
I feel that the dominant reason many civilians believe there is some form of national registration is because of TV and movies. You hear it all the time.... the gun was registered... or the gun was not registered.... The truth is that very few guns are actually registered. I believe DC and NYC are two exceptions. Not sure about CA in general. PA has a registry run by the State Police as I understand it. As guns are purchased and go through a FFL dealer, they are added to the registry.
 
Every time you hear "unregistered gun" on tv its a bad connotation and there is a crime involved.

My mom swore up and down that my grandpa's rifles had to be registered in my name after he died. I searched on the internet and showed her otherwise and she still didn't believe for about a day when my dad said he believed the NC rifle and pistol associations website.


Guess its just another gun myth...along with guns accidentally going off (no someone pulled the trigger accidentally), gun control stops crime (most guns used in crime were obtained illegally not from a gun shop), etc etc
 
IMO, the rationale that would make sense to me to register guns is based on 2 extremely flawed assumptions.

The first is that our government is 100% trustworthy with gun registration information and in not abusing it's citizens. That assumption has been proven so many times, it is sad to think it. Our government abuses information like that. Think NO when they confiscated guns from legal law abiding owners while the police ran away.

The second is that by registering guns, they will be able to rapidly track them back to criminals when guns are used illegally. As a fair number of criminals have their guns illegally, this is also a completely assumption, and in registering firearms, they would really need to register the ballistics of that firearm so they could find it by the shots being fired from it.

I think though if you believe those 2 assumptions, then we need gun registration. Course of I believed those 2 assumptions I would be disqualified on my CCW as having mental illness.
 
One angle I am suprised has not been tried, would have been simply to tax Gun ownership, which then automatically would require registration of all guns, to their owners, and for all transactions to be accounted for.

Possibly it was realized that people might not comply, and, that it would be impossible to enforce, and, would maybe be unconstititional as well.
Click to expand...

There IS an 11% tax paid on all guns and other sporting goods, but it is assessed at the manufacturing level
 
I just point out how the Polish firearms registrations allowed Hitler's troops to find the armed Jews first when they invaded Poland.

Shuts them pro-regs right up.
 
It has surface validity - meaning it sound sensible. Most people who haven't studied the issue feel that registration will prevent criminals from getting guns.

In fact, folks can be in favor of registration and also in favor of allowing law-abiding folks to freely buy registered guns.

They are not necessarily scared of gun but prevention of crimes with guns appeals to them.

They also do not see or think about registration schemes becoming increasing restrictions, confiscations or bans.

Of course, there are folks wildly against guns. However, if you want a realistic view of the common attitude of regular folk, that's it.

Based on my reading of the research on gun attitudes.
 
Also some shady swap meet /flea market persons use that myth to make money. I stopped at one guys table who had asked if the glock i was carrying was for sale. I told him I wasn't interested in selling it and noticed that he had .40 cal glock police trades for $550. I told him that was crazy and how brand new ones are cheaper. His response was that "well if you want to buy a registered gun thats fine but mines not registered"
 
Oldfool nailed it. All that paperwork is a form of registration. A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
 
I live in Texas where there is no registration. As far as I'm concerned, they can start registering as I've already acquired all the guns I'll ever "need". Haha...if I decide to buy an additional weapon after the registration starts, there's always a buddy who'll sell a gun for some cash and a 6 pack.
 
Americans, by and large, are pretty gullible and easy to delude. It's obvious that registering a gun will never do anything to prevent a crime. That's not the game; the game is about belief.

They want to believe. They know politicians lie to them all the time. Politicians find/invent a "problem" and propose a solution. They tell the people the reasons for it (which never includes the actual motivation "Increase government power") and the people choose to believe.

This is the only reason Barrack Obama is good for the country. These politicians are now comfortable behaving badly out in the open (look at Blagojevich). Americans are waking up to the fact that their country is in jeopardy BECAUSE of politicians. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next five election cycles.
 
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As stated in #13 it depends on exactly what is meant by registration and, I think, where you live. I live in NJ which requires all handgun transfers to be recorded and you can't buy a handgun without a permit, good for 90 days, allowing one handgun every 30 days. I happen to own a snubbie that was given to me when I was in NY many years ago by someone you has since passed on. That gun is not "registered" and it isn't "illegal".
 
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