Korwin: So Why Not Register Guns? Here’s Why Not!

Alan Korwin Authors Columns

Anti-gunners love to argue that we need a gun registry.  In many cases, they point to vehicle registration as an analogy to make their case.

“It is legal for an American to carry a weapon. It’s legal for them to drive a car. However, they register that car. We should perhaps look–and the NRA says, you know, guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd back in October.

“Well, cars don’t kill people. People driving them kill people. And so there are a lot of things that could be done to make it safer…” she continued.

KORWIN: The Police-Would-Never-Confiscate-Guns Myth

Leave it up to Alan Korwin, purveyor of Gunlaws.com, to tear apart that logic.  As you’ll see in the video above, Korwin makes a great counterpoint.  I’m paraphrasing, but cars and guns are not the same.  One is protected by the Constitution, the other is not.

Registering guns and licensing gun owners would be tantamount to registering bibles and licensing churches.  Yet no one is calling for a bible registry.  At least not yet.

Korwin makes a few more incisive remarks on the wrongheadedness of gun registration.  I won’t spoil them here.  Enjoy the video.

[H/T to David Leeper and the Scottsdale Tea Party for use of the video]

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  • James Lummel August 21, 2020, 1:13 pm

    Actually cars would be protected under the First Amendment, just the same as a printing press would. As the printing press is a tool used to exercise the freedom of speech, the car is a tool used to exercise the freedom of peaceful assembly.

    Someone could say, well you could walk to the meeting! You could handwrite your newspaper as well, you don’t strictly need a printing press! But the printing press IS the correct tool for the job, as a car is the correct tool for the job as well…

    This isn’t even a strictly Libertarian idea, it’s a Constitutionalist idea.

  • Guy Nevins August 21, 2020, 12:08 pm

    Gun control has never been about guns in California. It all about control, they want to control all parts of our lives, i.e. covid19 vaccine, they’re trying to make it mandatory for all. Why ? My immune system has already made me immune e to that crap, but the government still wants to force me to get the vaccine, why ? It’s all about control. Shove your control up your ass, sideways.

  • mtman2 December 24, 2019, 11:25 pm

    Yeah well horse + buggies etc are not listed as an “God given unalienable Right” nor then would vehicles be [tho are far more dangerous + accessible the guns]…

    However firearms are #2 on the list of Rights that “shall not be infringed”…that’s the real- ” law of the land “.

  • Rick Nelson November 8, 2019, 11:14 pm

    Yes we all know about automobile registration,paying vehicle sales tax,along with buying the tag when you purchase a vehicle.You must show proof of the minimum required state liability insurance where you live and anybody who doesn’t want to buy insurance doesn’t deserve to operate a vehicle.
    But when someone says something about that you must register the vehicle to pay for the use,repair,and upkeep of the roads my blood boils.What do you think you pay tax at the gas pump for?What do you think you pay state income tax for?What do you think you pay federal income tax for?What do you think you pay 9% sales tax on groceries,clothes,automobile parts,paint,floor tile,and everything else short of the air you breathe?Good God man we are drowning in taxes.It’s called these cities,states,and good old Uncle Sam should learn to live on a budget like the rest of us.We are being taxed to the point all the interstates in America should be paved with gold.

  • robert December 2, 2018, 4:21 pm

    He’s 100% right on all accounts except 1… gun registration DOES help in retrieving lost and stolen firearms; in the 60’s my dad had a pistol stolen out of the house. Believe it or not a few years down the road it was recovered some 1200 miles away in Baton Rouge. It was a 2nd gen Colt SAA. Not soo cool in the 60s but it’s a dam cool and collectible gun NOWadays 🙂 What would have happened had he not registered it?

    • GaShooter March 21, 2019, 3:08 pm

      You don’t need a gun registry for that. My dad had 3-4 rifles stolen from his hunting cabin back in the late ‘70s. Fortunately HE kept a list of all his guns with SNs. He gave a list of what was stolen to the sheriff dept and they were all returned after the “gun ring” was broken.

  • Timothy Mauldin May 4, 2018, 8:12 pm

    The Supreme Court ruled that a Criminal Cannot be Required to Register his gun. Haynes v. Supreme Court of
    the United States (1968). Why are law abiding citizens required to do so? Registration precedes confiscation.
    It’s not surprising. The 2nd Amendment is (as are the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights) written to protect us from
    an overbearing government. Do away with the Spirit and Letter of the 2nd Amendment and government controls the
    citizens. Don’t be fooled by those that say registration doesn’t erode our rights.

  • John E Duncan May 4, 2018, 3:50 pm

    The government HAS digitized the records,violating the law. My late sister in law was doing it years ago at ATF headquarters . So has Pennsylvania

  • Ted Probst April 6, 2018, 6:13 pm

    I will give you a better reason to not register firearms. At the beginning of the revolutionary war, the British Troops were marching on Concord Massachusetts to CONFISCATE THE WEAPONS THAT WERE SOLD TO THE COLONIES BY THE BRITISH CROWN, AND HELD IN ARMORIES (ie registered weapon sales) ! If you register the weapon and or the owner, it is so much easier for a tyrant to just move to confiscate them. Just take a look at all the deep state abuses that have been uncovered lately, need i say more ?

  • Charles Valenzuela January 12, 2018, 7:35 pm

    Well, Dianne, you stupid politician, you are not required to register a car to own it or even operate it. You are only required to register it if you want to operate it on public property ( like roads maintained by some government entity as most public roads are ). So that car registry analagy doesn’t hold water. You stupid slut.

    • JoeUSooner February 2, 2018, 12:19 pm

      I agree with you, Charles… with one small exception. “Slut” implies that she is in some way sexually appealing and active. Take a real good look… what sane individual would get anywhere near that supposedly-mammalian thing?

      • Jonny Rando August 9, 2019, 8:43 am

        Well said Sir, very well said. Ad this: look deeply into those eyes on that twisted EVIL face….she has a very special shit hole awaiting her in HELL…

    • mike ehrig May 22, 2019, 6:20 pm

      your crudeness is unnecessary.

  • Jeff the Jarhead January 12, 2018, 7:04 pm

    Private sales are not tracked. Going to a yard sale, garage sale, estate sale, etc and buying a gun (pistol or rifle, never a full auto) is a private transaction that is the business of the seller and buyer. No one else gets involved nor do they need to. The same goes for guns purchased through a want ad. Of course if you live in a communist state, yer up a creek without a paddle and none of the above applies.

  • Hawkeye January 12, 2018, 6:37 pm

    1). Cars aren’t protected by the US Constitution! Guns are SPECIFICALLY protectected!2). Make no mistake..guns bought lawfully ARE registered! How many notorious killings have there been where law enforcement has the weapon and Serial number and with in hours the name of the shooter. Trust that ATF/LEOs won’t use that I go except in “special defined ways” ONLY at your own risk!

  • MJ January 12, 2018, 2:20 pm

    Rights and privileges, does anybody know the difference? How can you restrict a right? Yet, there are laws on top of laws that do exactly that. My guns are already registered, you can\’t buy one unless you submit to a background check. Unfortunately we law-abiding gun owners know more about the 2nd Amendment then those elected idiots who took an oath. Maybe we should hold lawmakers accountable for their actions such as their promise to protect, support and defend the law of the land. Somehow politicians are always exempt. Your lawfully obtained guns are already registered and so are you.

  • MJ January 12, 2018, 1:56 pm

    Rights and privileges, does anybody know the difference? How can you restrict a right? Yet, there are laws on top of laws that do exactly that. My guns are already registered, you can’t buy one unless you submit to a background check. Unfortunately we law-abiding gun owners know more about the 2nd Amendment then those elected idiots who took an oath. Maybe we should hold lawmakers accountable for their actions such as their promise to protect, support and defend the law of the land. Somehow politicians are always exempt. Your lawfully obtained guns are already registered and so are you.

  • Fusion Pilot January 12, 2018, 10:21 am

    Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but it is absolutely not necessary to register a car. As long as you do not choose to drive it on public highways, they need not be registered, insured, nor is there a requirement to be driven by a licensed driver. Thousands of vehicles – racing vehicles, show vehicles, farm vehicles, factory vehicles, are not registered. 10 year-olds drive tractors and trucks on farms if they are part of the farm family. Let’s stop comparing them to guns. Period.

    • Patrick Duffy January 12, 2018, 10:53 am

      Correct and cars are not designed specifically to kill people In fact they are designed to minimise damage and fatality. Guns are the opposite – as a multiple gun owner.

      • DaveW January 12, 2018, 1:21 pm

        Cars are designed to protect the people INSIDE the car.
        Guns are not designed specifically to kill PEOPLE. There are many flavors for which guns are designed which have nothing to do with killing people. Hunting, competition, law enforcement are all examples where guns are not designed to specifically kill people. Even a cops weapon is first a psychological deterrent to criminal acts, just as a police K9 is. With regard to law enforcement and self defense, the cop or homeowner who wants to kill a human being, contrary to media and anti-gun propaganda, is nearly non-existent. The guns intended to kill humans are those used by the military, and even then, GIs do not want to kill people. They will and do, in the performance of their duties, but as one who has been there and back in Vietnam, nobody I knew wanted to kill people without just cause. We even had rules which dictated when we were permitted to fire our weapons (MAC V Rules of Engagement).

    • Shawn McManus January 12, 2018, 12:53 pm

      Lots of people want to “make them like cars.”
      OK then…
      – Suppressors are now legal and must be used when in public.
      – A license to carry in one state is good in all states.
      – Little to no restrictions on cosmetic features.
      – No restrictions on the number you can buy at a time and no state-mandated waiting period to receive it.
      – Buy as many rounds as you like without having to fill out any paper work.
      – Borrow a friends without becoming a criminal.
      – Most new firearms will be “automatic.”
      etc…

      • Wzrd January 12, 2018, 2:22 pm

        👏 bravo

  • Tom January 12, 2018, 9:57 am

    The talk of gun registration is not new. The thing is where I live in Connecticut we already have it and have had it for a long time. You may say we don’t, but I can assure you we do. Every time you buy a firearm from an FFL and fill out all the paperwork you just registered your firearm, at least in Connecticut. I know of two cases where people have found this out first hand. One had to do with a nasty divorce and the police showed up with a list of everything he every bought from an FFL, and wanted it. This list went back years. Also, and I don’t know if this is still true, but I saw this about fifteen years ago when the local police started to put computers in patrol cars. You could enter a persons name and address and it would tell you if he had a pistol permit. If the person did it also listed what pistols they owned, caliber and barrel length. Even our lustrous governor made the remark that “if you bought it, we know you have it.”
    So to me the argument should not be about getting gun registration, but rather how it should be done away with. The way I see it is you registration something, anything, for two reasons. 1st to tax it, 2nd to be able to take it away.

    • Wen January 12, 2018, 1:28 pm

      That sucks. There is a gun registry on a federal level, but that is paper only not digital. I believe the NRA pushed for it to not be digital so it would be harder to track. Connecticut might be breaking the law, but in my opinion all may-issue states are breaking the law so a law that is not enforced is useless. Also if you get a polymer80 gun and never register it, no one will know you have it 😉

  • MD January 12, 2018, 8:30 am

    Cars are registered in order for States to collect yearly tax payments that are advertised as needed for road building and maintenance. In truth only a small amount of that tax money is actually used for actual road work while most of it ends up in the general fund where it is used for every and any thing the state wants to use it for. This is clear to us all because most of the roads in this country are a mess and have been for years. Guns are registered so there is a federal record of who has what and with the idea that the process will keep guns out of the hands of people who don’t or shouldn’t have them because of several reasons that the government ( us ) has decided is a good reason for that person not to have one. We all know that this reasoning is faulty and even with the computer age can’t be managed in any useful way because bad people find ways to get a gun if they want one and bad people find a way to drive a car if they want to. Where we have lucked out so far is that the government has not realized it can collect billions of dollars in taxes from registered gun owners if they treat guns like cars and charge a license tax yearly on your registered gun or guns. Then if you have unregistered guns they find out about, you are also charged with tax evasion. Of course this still won’t do anything about keeping anyone from misusing a gun and committing a crime with it just like taxing your cars every year doesn’t prevent you from driving drunk and killing a bus full of kids headed for school with it but what the heck it’s still money in the till so our elected representatives can retire with full salary for life as their retirement fund. Mind my words. it’s coming.

    • Kris Mack January 12, 2018, 11:27 am

      If registering cars to collect tax as you say, why not just have annual license renewal fees instead? Tom is correct, but it’s nationwide with any FFL transaction. The FFL is just who keeps the records rather than the government. Smoke and mirrors. The purpose of registration is to get all the private sales guns registered.

      • joe May 20, 2019, 5:59 pm

        in michigan you do have to pay for a yearly tag for your license plates. some cost over 200$

  • joefoam January 12, 2018, 8:02 am

    Folks, every time you fill out a form 4473 you basically have registered your gun. If you think that info isn’t available to the government I have some swampland I’d like to sell you.

    • Karl November 2, 2018, 4:13 pm

      True. Every firearms I’ve purchased from my local gun store using the form 4473, “registers” me with the BATF. Plus my LGS requires a county-issued carry permit and photo ID (Driver’s License).

  • srsquidizen January 12, 2018, 7:15 am

    Good info. Also, another reason for registering cars is the fact they are used on on public roads (you DON’T have to register a vehicle NOT driven on the street–at least not in this state). It’s just one of several ways we collect money from people putting wear & tear on public infrastructure. IF there were a national network of public shooting ranges (Ha! Fat chance of that!) then it might be appropriate to register ONLY the guns used at those ranges. That would be for range maintenance revenue and to make sure guns used there were in safe condition. THEN and only then it would it be a valid comparison to car registration.

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