Dear Conservative,


We’ve heard it time and time again over the past year: Liberals telling us that we needed to stop overreacting about gun control. “We aren’t going to take your guns away,” Democrats promised us, “we just want to stop criminals from gaining access to these weapons.”


President Obama has been the most direct on this issue. During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Obama promised: “I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people’s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. [And] I will not take your handgun away.”


(These are strong words coming from the man who promised that if we liked our healthcare policy, we could keep our healthcare policy. “Period.”)


Obama has promised that his administration will not force us to register firearms, and that they have never even contemplated doing such a thing. However, a recently discovered internal Department of Justice memo paints a dramatically different picture. Entitled the “Summary of Select Firearm Violence Prevention Strategies,” the memo was penned by the National Institute of Justice and distributed throughout the Department of Justice in the weeks after last December’s shooting in Newtown, CT.





On the topic of universal background checks, the memo warns that “universal checks are insufficient for ensuring that firearm owners remain eligible.” Without a record of all gun purchases, it would be impossible to determine whether gun buyers followed the law. The only way to ensure that a universal check system is honored, it explains, is for the administration to implement a national firearm registry. Well… duh! But how many criminals do you think will willingly tell the government that they are breaking the law?





Here’s a fun fact: The Supreme Court has actually ruled that it is unconstitutional to require felons to register their firearms. Yes, you read that right. I know what you’re thinking… if anyone should be forced to register their guns, it should be dangerous criminals. I mean, that’s what the Democrats keep promising… that gun control is only geared towards criminals. Well, the Supreme Court ruled in Haynes vs. United States (1968) that felons and prohibited persons cannot be forced to register firearms or punished for non-compliance because no citizen can be forced to bear witness against his or herself. You see, the Fifth Amendment ensures that U.S. citizens cannot be forced to incriminate themselves.





So if registration is necessary for Obama’s gun control to work, and the government isn’t allowed to force criminals to register weapons, what’s the point? Well, this has never been about taking guns away from criminals. Gun control is about making sure the government, one day, is able to take guns away from us!


Tell Congress to STOP local, state, and federal governments from treating us like criminals and confiscating legally purchased firearms!

The fact remains that universal background checks alone will do little to stop criminals from acquiring firearms because without a national registry showing who owns what types of firearms, it would be impossible to verify that background checks were ever performed.


Unfortunately, the last hundred years of world history shows us that nearly every time a country forced its citizens to register their weapons, they were eventually banned and shortly followed by door-to-door confiscation. In many of these cases, this public disarmament preceded some of humanity’s grossest examples of ethnic cleansing and genocide.


 


Do I think that universal registration of firearms in the United States will result in Genocide? I sure hope not… But every shred of evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that forcible registration is closely followed by forcible confiscation. And this is already happening in many parts of the United States!


Just a little over a week ago, New York City began sending out letters ordering residents to “immediately surrender your rifle and/or shotgun to your local police precinct.” The alleged crime? They possessed of a rifle or shotgun with a magazine capable of holding more than 5 rounds of ammunition. To show just how ludicrous this is, realize that there were rifles used during the civil war with magazines that held upwards of 16 rounds of ammunition. This isn’t about banning new dangerous technologies. It is about limiting citizens’ ability to resist tyranny!





Confiscation has also started in California as police departments are now comparing the mandatory gun registry to the list of prohibited persons. California has the most exhaustive list of disqualifiers in the country and is the most active user of gun registries for confiscatory purposes. This has allowed California to confiscate weapons from people it deems to be disqualified and enables the police to go after weapons the state arbitrarily feels are too dangerous for civilian ownership.





States like New Jersey, Massachusetts, and now Washington D.C. also force prospective gun owners to be fingerprinted like a criminal before they are allowed to exercise their Second Amendment rights. I wonder what Democrats would do if we mandated that everyone be fingerprinted to verify their identity before they are allowed to vote…





Tell Congress to STOP the government from treating law-abiding gun owners like criminals!





I guess you can add it to the list of Barack Obama’s lies. While Obama was going around the country promising not to confiscate your firearms, Eric Holder’s DOJ was deliberating over potential federal confiscation measures. And when the Democrats point to New York and California as wonderful examples of effective gun control, remember that these states have given themselves the power to arbitrarily confiscate firearms from those deemed to be unfit to enjoy constitutional rights. With gun control, there is no such thing as being “innocent until proven guilty.”





Gun control advocates say that registration and confiscation are necessary tools to ensure that prohibited persons do not possess firearms. But as we already proved, these prohibited persons are not legally required to incriminate themselves by registering their firearms! This is all about targeting us! We must remain skeptical and ask what characteristics should make a person prohibited. Should committing a misdemeanor force you to forfeit constitutional rights? Should a doctor have the sole authority to deem you unfit to protect your family? Should a police chief have the power to deny a firearm permit based on his or her gut feeling?


As a country, we must have this debate. But we also must push back against attempts to register firearms because history has shown that whenever firearms are forcibly registered, they are eventually forcibly confiscated. This isn’t about taking guns away from criminals. Universal background checks and registrations will have no effect on illegal gun ownership. This is all about controlling us!


Join me in telling Congress to once and for all to stop the vilification of American patriots and to stop local, state, and federal governments from forcibly disarming us law-abiding citizens!


Fax Congress!


Sincerely,


Joe Otto