Back in 2017, shortly after the Mandalay Bay shooting sparked yet another wave of anti-rights advocacy, I noted a little compliance problem. I described what it would take to start firearms confiscations (and presumably arrests). TL;DR: It wouldn’t be pretty.

“The sheer immorality of victim disarmament aside, one would hope every law enforcement officer out there would stop to consider all the possible ramifications of kicking in several million doors because the occupants are well armed.”
— Moi, back in the ’90s

But hey; that assumed they wouldn’t know who had what, or where. But what if they could somehow manage registration this time? There’s a reason the socialist Dems are pushing universal “background checks” — preemptively-prove-your-innocence prior restraint –so hard. It isn’t to fight crime, since criminals already bypass such checks with illegal channels. It’s to get a record of all transactions, so they can collate lists from those 4473s. If they can get this through the Senate and the White House (which I do not rule out despite Trump’s — “I’m pro-2A except for bump stocks, age limits, ex parte protective order SWATting…” — statement), the next step would be changing the law to allow the ATF to collect 4473s (which they’ve been doing anyway, during FFL inspections) and enter the information into an electronically searchable database. Once they’ve got that, the next step is to require is gun owners to register themselves and their guns, since anyone who did NICS is already in their files.

Then owner licensing.

All that might take a while, but if the Dems get the White House in 2020, it’ll speed up.

So let’s look ahead and guess what they might do with total registration. Again, we know it won’t have anything to do with fighting violent crime. It’s about us. They really need us disarmed to carry out the Green Raw Deal. Will it work?

No. As it happens, we already have fine examples of owner licensing and firearm registration, coupled with confiscations: California and Illinois.

A year ago, California was using their lists to confiscate firearms from people who’d “lost” their right to keep and bear arms (such as it is in the People’s Republik). They had a backlog of 10,225 people to shake down. In a multi-agency, two-day operation, they attempted to confiscate weapons from 47 people.

They recovered one gun.

A year later, that backlog increased to more than 23,200. When they know where to go. What to look for.

Then there’s Illinois, where their record keeping is, in actuality, so bad that they issue Firearm Owner IDs — licenses — to felons. Who pass background checks. On those rare occasions, when they realize someone has become prohibited, less than half the time does the person turn in his weapons; probably 6,000 per year still armed. And they can’t figure it out until one of those known criminals goes on a killing spree.

States can’t keep up now, when they know who has how many guns, and where. Go national with another 100,000,000 targets of unknown locations and arms. It would be impossible for them to perform confiscations through unconstitutional law enforcement actions, much less bound by constitutional due process requirements.

With registration — however they attempt it — the government cannot successfully confiscate through normal processes even if they bypassed posse comitatus and use every man, woman, and whatever in the military.

Remember California Representative — and presidential hopeful — Swalwell’s threat of overwhelming military force? That was neither joke nor hyperbole. It was a trial balloon, to see how people — including the usually anti-military left — would react to the idea of waging war against gun owners. Because law enforcement methods demonstrably do not work, and they know it.

Imagine 2020. Trump and the Republicans caved on major campaign promises: border security, killing Obamacare, gun control especially. Sure, Trump still talks the talk, but his actions prove him a liar. And the Senate Republicans let reciprocal carry and hearing protection die.

They alienated their voter base, who turn to anti-Republican protest votes or just stay home. Democrats take the House, Senate, and White House. President Whomever (they’re all pro-Green Raw Deal socialists, and anti-rights) declare a gun violence national emergency. A flurry of disarmament bills pass as fast as the first background check bill of the 116th Congress.

And the military mobilizes; designated cat-bellers.

Pre-Obama, I would have rated the odds of the military going along as being pretty low. But the leadership has been purged and social justice is damned near written into the UCMJ. I’m not taking bets on what they’d do.

But Swalwell and others have told us what they want to do. A declaration of war on America. I suppose they imagine it as a civil war between professional military forces and Bible-clutching deplorables; good reality TV, while they sip Chardonnay.

They should be so lucky. They would be declaring open hunting season, with Clinton Rules of Engagement.

I don’t want that. And neither should they. No one sane does.

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