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The argument is that a gun registry defeats the intended purpose of the second amendment, which (indirectly) is to prevent the government from stopping a popula

The argument is that a gun registry defeats the intended purpose of the second amendment, which (indirectly) is to prevent the government from stopping a popular revolution.

revelation 10y ago
When you say indirectly, you gotta make the connection for it to be an actual argument. Something like "when the government has a list of every gun owner, they could stop a popular revolution because (X insert here)". You can't hand wave it into being. I don't see the connection to a registry at all. So you're an evil dictator and want to kill that revolution, what good is a list of 150m individual persons? What good is the mapping from "identification number" to "gun owner"? Is it important which "guns" participate in the revolution? Can anyone tell that?
- chris_va 10y ago
  The "indirection" here is on the intention of the 2nd amendment, which while written to provide for gun ownership is actually intended to provide for popular revolution. Having said that, yes, I left out why a gun registry might restrict the probability of a revolution unstated. Let's imagine it's 1860, and the local ex-slave population is acting up. But, you have a registry of all ex-slaves who own guns. You drive around with a posse and confiscate them all before a popular revolution gets going. Is that in the best interests of the local people? Probably not, thus a registry in this context could be used to suppress the citizenry. The same thing is true today, but realistically there is no way individual gun ownership in 2016 is going to be sufficient to for a population to successfully revolt. It's not like we are letting people own gunships. However, the 2nd amendment hasn't been updated to reflect modern reality. In a lot of ways, this boils down to an "originalist vs living constitutional" argument.
  - jameshart 10y ago
    But in that story it's the decision to use the database to carry out confiscation which is unconstitutional, not the existence of the database in the first place. If a government decided to confiscate all the cars from Hispanic people by using their vehicle registration database, that would be unconstitutional too - but that doesn't mean having a vehicle registry is invalid.
    - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
      Practically everyone owns a car. There'd be some pretty obvious writing on the wall if a small vocal minority demonized cars and convinced the gov't to confiscate them from one minority (racial or otherwise) everyone else would catch on quick. Not as many people have skin in the game in terms of gun ownership. Why don't you trust the populace with their guns rather than ask the populace to trust the gov't with a registry? For X amount of bad things to happen (where X is a large number) you need a lot more coordinated or systemically encouraged action in the first situation whereas in the latter a few insulated members of the elite and a loud lobby by a few interest groups would suffice.
    - chris_va 10y ago
      Sure, but the premise here is that the population no longer trusts the government to serve their best interests, nor perhaps abide by the constitution. It's all about checks and balances. The second amendment gives some power to the people to revolt (in theory), as a check against government power. If the people need to trust the government not to do something unconstitutional (i.e. not confiscate weapons) for that to be effective, then the check is no longer useful and it defeats the purpose of the second amendment.
gcr 10y ago
How does collecting a gun database prevent a revolution? Concretely, what's the argument here other than "surveillance is bad"? Using such a database to deny a citizen the right to purchase a gun would be one way, for example, but I don't see that mentioned here.
- lwhalen 10y ago
  A gun database enables mass confiscation, and historically a gun database precedes mass confiscation by a few short years.
  - gcr 10y ago
    Historically? When has this happened in the past?
    - hga 10y ago
      Off the top of my head: Nazi Germany, initially using "well intentioned" Wiemar law, in fact (the period after the WWI defeat was very chaotic and bloody). See this book by the #1 RKBA legal scholar for all the details: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598131613/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598131613/ The description also helps confirm this next example: Any country they invaded with registration lists, including the Netherlands; perhaps the #1 US RKBA activist of the 20th Century got started down that path in basic training after WWII, when a refugee from there related an atrocity he'd witnessed, where a whole family was machine gunned in the village/town square after the head of the household couldn't produce a handgun the register said he had. The above examples are particularly instructive since by definition you can never know who might in the future use such data for ill. Soviet Russia if I remember correctly; in fact, if I remember correctly, there was not a single genocide in the 20th Century that wasn't proceeded with the pattern, aside from China, where the Communists instead dried up the supply of guns held by the population by imposing "rifle taxes" on the wealthy. Basically, their life was forfeit unless they supplied the Communists with a certain number of guns, and they moved heaven and earth to do that, not that it did them any good in the end. Of course, the poorer the population in general, the easier it is to pull of such a gambit, or a registration followed by a confiscation, so many fewer have guns. Communist Cuba, for sure. They came up with a catchy slogan, got too many people to register, confiscated the guns, and then gangs of them started having fun with their class enemies. As noted elsewhere in this discussion, in smaller numbers for select types of weapons, with of course the option to remove them from the state, this has happened in California when the status of the obsolescent (but certainly effective, e.g. used by the recent Dallas cop shooter) SKS, and in New York State. Something like it might be playing out right now in Massachusetts as their AG decided to redefine their "assault weapons" law, but she's still changing her not actually all that official position on it (i.e. it's published in unofficial venues like the office's web cite, no proper rule making process was followed).

The argument is that a gun registry defeats the intended purpose of the second amendment, which (indirectly) is to prevent the government from stopping a popular revolution.

revelation 10y ago

When you say indirectly, you gotta make the connection for it to be an actual argument. Something like "when the government has a list of every gun owner, they could stop a popular revolution because (X insert here)". You can't hand wave it into being. I don't see the connection to a registry at all. So you're an evil dictator and want to kill that revolution, what good is a list of 150m individual persons? What good is the mapping from "identification number" to "gun owner"? Is it important which "guns" participate in the revolution? Can anyone tell that?

chris_va 10y ago
The "indirection" here is on the intention of the 2nd amendment, which while written to provide for gun ownership is actually intended to provide for popular revolution. Having said that, yes, I left out why a gun registry might restrict the probability of a revolution unstated. Let's imagine it's 1860, and the local ex-slave population is acting up. But, you have a registry of all ex-slaves who own guns. You drive around with a posse and confiscate them all before a popular revolution gets going. Is that in the best interests of the local people? Probably not, thus a registry in this context could be used to suppress the citizenry. The same thing is true today, but realistically there is no way individual gun ownership in 2016 is going to be sufficient to for a population to successfully revolt. It's not like we are letting people own gunships. However, the 2nd amendment hasn't been updated to reflect modern reality. In a lot of ways, this boils down to an "originalist vs living constitutional" argument.
- jameshart 10y ago
  But in that story it's the decision to use the database to carry out confiscation which is unconstitutional, not the existence of the database in the first place. If a government decided to confiscate all the cars from Hispanic people by using their vehicle registration database, that would be unconstitutional too - but that doesn't mean having a vehicle registry is invalid.
  - dsfyu404ed 10y ago
    Practically everyone owns a car. There'd be some pretty obvious writing on the wall if a small vocal minority demonized cars and convinced the gov't to confiscate them from one minority (racial or otherwise) everyone else would catch on quick. Not as many people have skin in the game in terms of gun ownership. Why don't you trust the populace with their guns rather than ask the populace to trust the gov't with a registry? For X amount of bad things to happen (where X is a large number) you need a lot more coordinated or systemically encouraged action in the first situation whereas in the latter a few insulated members of the elite and a loud lobby by a few interest groups would suffice.
  - chris_va 10y ago
    Sure, but the premise here is that the population no longer trusts the government to serve their best interests, nor perhaps abide by the constitution. It's all about checks and balances. The second amendment gives some power to the people to revolt (in theory), as a check against government power. If the people need to trust the government not to do something unconstitutional (i.e. not confiscate weapons) for that to be effective, then the check is no longer useful and it defeats the purpose of the second amendment.

gcr 10y ago

How does collecting a gun database prevent a revolution? Concretely, what's the argument here other than "surveillance is bad"? Using such a database to deny a citizen the right to purchase a gun would be one way, for example, but I don't see that mentioned here.

lwhalen 10y ago
A gun database enables mass confiscation, and historically a gun database precedes mass confiscation by a few short years.
- gcr 10y ago
  Historically? When has this happened in the past?
  - hga 10y ago
    Off the top of my head: Nazi Germany, initially using "well intentioned" Wiemar law, in fact (the period after the WWI defeat was very chaotic and bloody). See this book by the #1 RKBA legal scholar for all the details: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598131613/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598131613/ The description also helps confirm this next example: Any country they invaded with registration lists, including the Netherlands; perhaps the #1 US RKBA activist of the 20th Century got started down that path in basic training after WWII, when a refugee from there related an atrocity he'd witnessed, where a whole family was machine gunned in the village/town square after the head of the household couldn't produce a handgun the register said he had. The above examples are particularly instructive since by definition you can never know who might in the future use such data for ill. Soviet Russia if I remember correctly; in fact, if I remember correctly, there was not a single genocide in the 20th Century that wasn't proceeded with the pattern, aside from China, where the Communists instead dried up the supply of guns held by the population by imposing "rifle taxes" on the wealthy. Basically, their life was forfeit unless they supplied the Communists with a certain number of guns, and they moved heaven and earth to do that, not that it did them any good in the end. Of course, the poorer the population in general, the easier it is to pull of such a gambit, or a registration followed by a confiscation, so many fewer have guns. Communist Cuba, for sure. They came up with a catchy slogan, got too many people to register, confiscated the guns, and then gangs of them started having fun with their class enemies. As noted elsewhere in this discussion, in smaller numbers for select types of weapons, with of course the option to remove them from the state, this has happened in California when the status of the obsolescent (but certainly effective, e.g. used by the recent Dallas cop shooter) SKS, and in New York State. Something like it might be playing out right now in Massachusetts as their AG decided to redefine their "assault weapons" law, but she's still changing her not actually all that official position on it (i.e. it's published in unofficial venues like the office's web cite, no proper rule making process was followed).