Both Reason and Instapundit have both roundly castigated the Hartford Courant’s faintly hysterical (in all senses of the term) editorial calling for Connecticut cops to harass Connecticut gun owners into providing something better than a 15% registration rate (at best) for their Scary Evil Devil-Guns “military-style assault weapons.” Goodness knows the editorial deserved it, given that it seems to have been written by one of the most politically tone-deaf people in the country. I especially enjoyed this pious hope of the Courant’s:
Although willful noncompliance with the law is doubtless a major issue, it’s possible that many gun owners are unaware of their obligation to register military-style assault weapons and would do so if given another chance.
Referencing my general rule of thumb that the average gun-control activist is about twenty or so IQ points dumber than the average Second Amendment advocate: no, I’m pretty sure that the folks currently possessing those “military-style assault weapons” are both well aware of the State of Connecticut’s Scary Gun registration diktat, and have absolutely no intention of complying with it. So now what, Connecticut? Is the plan to really go out and ask every gun owner if they still own a Scary Gun? Yeah, that should work out well – which is to say, it won’t work out at all.
This is not, by the way, a prelude to some sort of armed uprising in Connecticut (probably much to the secret disappointment to the more sweaty and fervid activists in the gun control lobby). Instead, it’s a civil disobedience issue – and it’s going to be the tough, hard-nosed kind of civil disobedience that looks you in the eye and dares you to turn tens of thousands of loyal, patriotic Americans into felons because of their Constitutional rights. This November will be the first election after the law was passed; neither party’s legislators are particularly eager to have this issue flare up.
Unless they’re stupid. And there’s some argument that they are stupid, alas; after all, Connecticut passed this law in the first place.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Yeah, I vote ‘stupid’, with some argument as to what degree…..
I just moved from the people’s republic of Maryland to the people’s republic of Connecticut. Out of the frying pan…
Go West, young man.
Just stop before you get near the coast.
I’m not sure if you have heard of Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars, but he has been going after CT tooth and nail over this issue. He fired off a great letter to Mike Lawlor, the Under Secretary of Connecticut as well as the State Police.
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This is beyond nose tweaking. This is jumping over the line and looking at these bullies and daring them to do something. God bless him.
So failing to register your gun in CT makes you a felon according to this law, right? And felons cannot legally own guns. So I don’t think this was stupid at all. Rather, it was planned. Oh sure, there will be some near term political losses, but if you’re thinking about the long game here, you can see where the left thinks that it ends.
The problem with that strategy is that the Connecticut legislature clearly did not realize that people refusing to register their guns en masse could be a potential result of the legislation – and they certainly did not anticipate that it would be the end result. That’s why they’re running around like headless chickens right now: because right now all it takes is one sufficiently telegenic case to show up and the gun rights groups will descend upon CT with a swarm of angry pro bono lawyers.
Moe Lane
PS: I looked it up: gun ownership aside, Connecticut only doesn’t let convicted felons vote while they’re in jail or on parole. Once the sentence is served, however, they get their vote back. And that doesn’t even take into account family members and friends of the persecuted felon…
The problem with governing is that it is dependent on the consent of the governed. If the governed do not consent the governing class has a real problem.