# Gun registration **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 13, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073 "2013-01-13T17:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/161 "2013-01-18T22:46:30Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > A registration database would be problematic to implement as well (largely because in the past a few places like Chicago that established such databases used them to subsequently confiscate legally registered guns). Curious, can you give a site on the Chicago experience and the confiscation of legally registered guns? A registration database will take time, money and effort, but so do a lot of things. Would also have to have a reward and / or penalty that would drive compliance. Are we willing to pay the price as country to get it done is the real question? ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/162 "2013-01-18T23:24:57Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Those people don’t give a rats behind about reducing crime, or safety, or anything even remotely related. They want a completely disarmed populace. Who are “those people?” Could you give some specific examples of those who want to disarm the populace? It would seem to me that gun control advocates are indeed very interested in reducing crime and injury or death by gunshot. But you seem to believe that there are multitudes of people out there who want to get rid of guns merely to spite you and other gun owners. Why would people in general waste so much time and energy if they didn’t have good reason for doing so? Seriously, help me out here. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/163 "2013-01-18T23:31:55Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Curious, can you give a site on the Chicago experience and the confiscation of legally registered guns? Quick and dirty, but [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._Chicago) [you](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-09/news/ct-met-chicago-gun-lawsuit-20100709_1_gun-ban-chicago-city-council) [go](http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/September-2012/Is-Chicagos-New-Gun-Law-Legal/). Since the whole thing predates the web by over a decade, there’s not a ton of reputable cites to the affair online (at least that I can find). Prior to 1982, it was legal to own a handgun in the city of Chicago provided it was registered with the city. In 1982, the city outlawed both the sale and the possession of handguns within Cook County. From what I’ve heard (my family lived in the suburbs at that time, but I was away at college), there was a grandfather clause in place - but Chicago later required all guns (both handguns and long guns) to be re-registered with the city every two years, and when the law banning handguns was passed in 1982, the city stopped registering handguns. So when it was time for a legal owner to re-register his handgun, he couldn’t - and the registration list allowed the city to find out whether the gun had been sold or was still in the resident’s possession. (More knowledgeable Dopers, if this is an incorrect summary, please feel free to correct me!) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/164 "2013-01-19T01:29:20Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > That won’t fly in the US. Unannounced police searches of private residences would absolutely not be tolerated. A registration database would be problematic to implement as well (largely because in the past a few places like Chicago that established such databases used them to subsequently confiscate legally registered guns). I just read all your links, and while I’m seeing a registry, and I’m seeing a refusal to register handguns, I’m missing any account of using the registry to confiscate handguns. Am I missing something here? ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/165 "2013-01-19T02:03:03Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I just read all your links, and while I’m seeing a registry, and I’m seeing a refusal to register handguns, I’m missing any account of using the registry to confiscate handguns. Am I missing something here? That’s the part I’m having trouble tracking down. The catch was that at some point after 1982, the registration had to be renewed periodically (which was impossible as Chicago no longer allowed registration renewals). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/166 "2013-01-19T05:40:14Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > That’s the part I’m having trouble tracking down. The catch was that at some point after 1982, the registration had to be renewed periodically (which was impossible as Chicago no longer allowed registration renewals). No, I saw that. What I don’t see is that the registration is used as a tool for confiscation. In order for that to happen, I think there’d need to be at least a teeny bit of outreach. That is, the government would need to contact people and say, “Hey, I notice you registered a handgun. We don’t allow those in the city any more, so you need to turn it in.” Did they do any such thing? If not, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize the registration as a tool for confiscation. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/167 "2013-01-19T06:30:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No, I saw that. What I don’t see is that the registration is used as a tool for confiscation. > > In order for that to happen, I think there’d need to be at least a teeny bit of outreach. That is, the government would need to contact people and say, “Hey, I notice you registered a handgun. We don’t allow those in the city any more, so you need to turn it in.” > > Did they do any such thing? I have heard that in fact they did send letters to the registered handgun owners saying “Your registration is expiring. turn in the gun or get rid of it outside the city,” but this happened almost 30 years ago, and my web searches to date haven’t yielded anything I regard as a credible cite. (I haven’t linked to the ones I have found stating that’s what happened as I don’t regard them as credible.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Niply\_Elder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@The\_Niply\_Elder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Niply_Elder)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/168 "2013-01-19T08:43:23Z")
Registration of handguns goes hand in hand with licensing. Licensing means that there is training and testing to surpass. It makes for a more competent, educated and effective armed populace. All the gun owners here denouncing any gun control are either ignorant, or more likely a by-product of our current gun culture: irresponsible, ill-trained, incompetent, rebellious, argumentative, immature, uninformed, self-absorbed gun owners that are a danger to anyone within shooting distance of them. As a matter of fact I can share with you guys that a bunch of my cow orkers are going to the dessert to shoot guns this weekend. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that there’ll be plenty of weed and shrooms to go around. So yeah, I feel the utmost contempt for the system that allows these yahoos unimpeeded access to all the gun they want. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/169 "2013-01-19T13:50:23Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Short answer: We’ll (probably) know they have guns by going into their homes and searching for them. And if they don’t own their own home, or live with other people? Are you going to search the parents’ house and confiscate the roommates’ guns too? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/170 "2013-01-19T13:51:57Z")
> [@The\_Niply\_Elder](#): > > All the gun owners here denouncing any gun control are either ignorant, or more likely a by-product of our current gun culture: irresponsible, ill-trained, incompetent, rebellious, argumentative, immature, uninformed, self-absorbed gun owners that are a danger to anyone within shooting distance of them. This is satire, right? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Niply\_Elder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@The\_Niply\_Elder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Niply_Elder)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/171 "2013-01-19T15:31:05Z")
Nope. It’s reality. Gun owners want to pretend to be soldiers without actually going through the rigorous training that professional soldiers go through. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/172 "2013-01-19T15:57:34Z")
> [@The\_Niply\_Elder](#): > > Registration of handguns goes hand in hand with licensing. Licensing means that there is training and testing to surpass. It makes for a more competent, educated and effective armed populace. > > All the gun owners here denouncing any gun control are either ignorant, or more likely a by-product of our current gun culture: irresponsible, ill-trained, incompetent, rebellious, argumentative, immature, uninformed, self-absorbed gun owners that are a danger to anyone within shooting distance of them. > > As a matter of fact I can share with you guys that a bunch of my cow orkers are going to the dessert to shoot guns this weekend. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that there’ll be plenty of weed and shrooms to go around. So yeah, I feel the utmost contempt for the system that allows these yahoos unimpeeded access to all the gun they want. Interesting. While I would object to such activities around guns, and I don’t know anyone that would mix weed and shrooms with guns(I’ve been shooting for 40 years) let us know how many of them get shot. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/173 "2013-01-19T16:23:34Z")
> [@The\_Niply\_Elder](#): > > Nope. It’s reality. Gun owners want to pretend to be soldiers without actually going through the rigorous training that professional soldiers go through. I was a soldier. We shot at targets. We learned to clear the weapon and not point it at anybody we didn’t want dead. We cleaned the shit out of them. It wasn’t that rigorous. I’m pretty sure most civilians do the same. Why should the average person who wants to defend their home have to learn to march and dig foxholes and use the phonetic alphabet? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/174 "2013-01-19T16:52:05Z")
> [@The\_Niply\_Elder](#): > > All the gun owners here denouncing any gun control are either ignorant, or more likely a by-product of our current gun culture: irresponsible, ill-trained, incompetent, rebellious, argumentative, immature, uninformed, self-absorbed gun owners that are a danger to anyone within shooting distance of them. You’re not allowed to insult other posters in this forum. Don’t do it again. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2013, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/175 "2013-01-19T21:22:03Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > And if they don’t own their own home, or live with other people? Are you going to search the parents’ house and confiscate the roommates’ guns too? Whatever the law that gets passed says. Anybody know what the proposed laws state? ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/176 "2013-01-20T04:16:00Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Whatever the law that gets passed says. Anybody know what the proposed laws state? Nothing about registration, nothing about confiscation. [President Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence - ABC News](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/president-obama-unveils-sweeping-plan-curb-gun-violence/story?id=18228472) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/177 "2013-01-20T16:29:45Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > I have heard that in fact they did send letters to the registered handgun owners saying “Your registration is expiring. turn in the gun or get rid of it outside the city,” but this happened almost 30 years ago, and my web searches to date haven’t yielded anything I regard as a credible cite. (I haven’t linked to the ones I have found stating that’s what happened as I don’t regard them as credible.) First, I definitely appreciate your willingness to back away from a point rather than offer a shoddy cite. I click the “report” button when someone is making crappy posts, but I wish there were a “like” button for when someone goes above and beyond GD’s current culture in a post like that. Thanks! That said, I’m about to move the goalposts :D. I know I said earlier that > [@](#): > > In order for that [i.e., confiscation] to happen, I think there’d need to be at least a teeny bit of outreach. That is, the government would need to contact people and say, “Hey, I notice you registered a handgun. We don’t allow those in the city any more, so you need to turn it in.” But on reflection, even that’s not enough for a charge of confiscation. WHen I confiscate something from a student, I do one of two things: 1. I physically take possession of it; or 2. I tell the student, “You need to hand that to me,” and if they don’t, I administer a consequence (e.g., silent lunch, office referral, phone call home, etc.) If a registry is used for confiscation, I think it’d have to do one of these two things. That is, either 1. The police physically take possession of the gun; or 2. The government says, “You need to turn in that gun,” and if you don’t, they charge you with a crime. I originally said that the first part of #2 would suffice, but I think that’s not true: you’d need to have both parts of #2. I can see how the first part might get folks’ hackles raised, but I don’t think it’d be fair to call it confiscation unless there was actually a criminal charge attached to someone who didn’t comply. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/178 "2013-01-20T18:27:27Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![The\_Niply\_Elder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@The\_Niply\_Elder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Niply_Elder)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/179 "2013-01-22T03:55:47Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Interesting. While I would object to such activities around guns, and I don’t know anyone that would mix weed and shrooms with guns(I’ve been shooting for 40 years) let us know how many of them get shot. Well, everyone is back uninjured. However, a park ranger handed out two open container tickets, then after finding out they were part of a certain camping party, made them clean up the camping site of all the debris they left behind (stuff like propane tank shards, shell casings, misc garbage, etc.) > [@Marley23](#): > > You’re not allowed to insult other posters in this forum. Don’t do it again. Sorry, I got carried away. Won’t happen again. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Oak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/dbc845/32.png) [@Gary\_Oak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Oak)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073/180 "2013-01-22T11:10:32Z")
I would fucking love to see all the anti gun nutters get their house robbed by some guy, and then for the cops not to show up… I would laughing at this fuckheads since they are getting robbed… karma does come back [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-registration/647073.md?page=10)