I’ve previously mentioned how gun registration bears no rational relationship to crime prevention, and instead is simply a direct or indirect means of infringing the right of law abiding citizens to own firearms. A recent case from California, in which two law abiding citizens did everything they could to lawfully give and receive a gun as a gift – only to be caught up in red tape and potential criminal prosecution – underscores this point:
My daughter gave her daddy a gun for his birthday. As a law-abiding citizen he went to transfer ownership. Ten days later a letter arrived from the Department of Justice — transfer denied, stated my husband is a felon and he can’t have fire arms. Shock: He knew he was not a felon, had bought and registered guns for years, and now that department states that he is a felon since 1972 and can’t have any guns. [After a multi-month-long ordeal, the law abiding citizen was finally able to sort out the problem, although even in the end the government never gave a satisfactory answer as to why he had been put through that situation]
Never underestimate the ability of a governmental agency to mess up in a way that harms an individual citizen. Be it failing to provide proper police protection (despite numerous requests for help), wrongful confiscation of self defense guns during a natural disaster, lackluster 9-1-1 response times, or wrongful prosecutions of those who act in self defense, the simple fact is that large bureaucracies are both error-prone and unaccountable.
That is a bad situation, especially when a fundamental right such as gun ownership is concerned. What is needed is to have fewer governmental resources wasted upon making law abiding gun owner jump through hoops in order to lawfully own a gun. Doing so would not only prevent abuses of power such as happened in the above case from California, but would also save taxpayer money from being squandered.