Ok, say the 2nd Amendment is indeed resurgent. Say Heller goes through the Supreme Court, and it rules, "Of COURSE it is an individual right, and attempts to disarm the citizenry are dubious at best." Yay, victory! And no new gun laws come out after, for the most part, BUT we pretty much stick with what we have. None are added, but none are taken away. We stand pat.
Then decades go by.
And someone invents a new weapon and it’s issued to the military. A great rifle. Call it a Ray Gun. Something like, a beam weapon with unlimited ‘ammo’ for all intents and purposes and unlimited rate of fire. Something with greater range and easier accuracy than any rifle we now have. Something even more deadly than a hit from a 7.62mm bullet. And all in 9 pound shoulder fired portable rifle-like package.
Unlike NFA controlled machineguns, NONE are in the hands of non-governmental actors legally. And it is obviously manufactured after 1986 so none are coming down the pipe for civilians either. And I already stipulated a certain inertia, legislatively, so there is no chance new laws would make this weapon available to the general public.
So a revolution in technological design has rendered all our smokeless powder-charge propelled metal slugs obsolete. And only the gov’t controls the advanced weapon. As though all our rifles today magically turned into Civil War re-enactor group muzzleloaders.
Conversely, what if the Supreme Court settled all this in 1880, but some 1879 version of the NFA was allowed to stand. In that the people have a right to percussion cap muzzleloading weapons, but none of these more effected brass cartridge breech loaders and any further developments of same into the future.
Sure the weapons possessed by the individuals is a right enumerated in the Constitution, and positively confirmed by the Supreme Court interpretation of same, but they are, at that future date, unable to as effectively oppose a tyrannical gov’t, should one rise to power with the cooperation of our security forces.
I’m wondering if stand pat inertia after a Supreme Court victory is advisable. Are we going to have to roll back to 1968 levels? (ie. Repeal the 1986 gun control laws that restricted the 1934 National Firearms Act even further.) I know many want to, and then keep going to pre-1934 NFA levels, but I’m thinking of the most practical appeal to a lowest common denominator.
Hmmm. Something to think about. And repealing the 1986 law will make current NFA weapon owner, that legally own machine guns and such, very upset. The 1986 law made a false scarcity and subsequent inflation of legal machine gun prices. You repeal the 1986 law and you’ve ruined their ‘investment.’ Of course it’s a false market insulated from true capitalist principles and thus as phantom as tulip bulbs and ponzi schemes. Sorta like Social Security and Carbon Cap and Trade markets. The really angry machine-gun owners will be the ones that ONLY bought the weapon for an investment, rather than the pleasure of shooting it.
I feel the 1968 laws and 1934 laws are less of a burden, as long as safeguards are put in place to keep something like NICS from becoming a defacto registration system, because I don’t trust the gov’t to not convert a registration list into a confiscation list.
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NICS was passed with a provision that specifically prohibits its use as a registration system. The NRA among others feared that very thing.
By law, NICS transaction records must be destroyed within 24 hours. Some records may be held for audit purposes but must not contain identifiable owner information. Nor may these records legally be held in a backup system "just in case". In principle and in law, NICS records must be destroyed.
The only paper trail that exists are the 4473s and the state forms.
And 18 USC 926(a) specifically prohibits the establishment of gun registration. The clause is as follows:
No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established.
Source here.
The Bradys continue to scream about the NICS record destruction. They want a system of registration. On its face, even licensing and registration systems at the State level are blatantly illegal under the law. But they don't call them registration schemes. Safety courses, inspections, sales records and the like. Still illegal.
So in reality, FOPA'86 actually put in protections for gun owners in exchange for that false market for MGs. The fact the Hughes Amendment should never have been passed is a separate topic altogether.
Great post!
I'd rather go back to the laws of 1791 with the caveat that felons can't possess firearms.
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