Wednesday, September 6, 2000

By AMY RILEY
One Citizen's Perspective

A Citizen reader shared an e-mail warning with us in last week's paper about a pending bill in the U.S. Senate that seeks to mandate hand gun registration and taxation through an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. Since I had received the same message through a conservative listing service, I went on a mission to check it out myself. So many of the e-mails we get are bogus urban legends or outright lies. You can never be too careful in substantiating what you read. Here's what I found out about U.S. Senate bill 2099.
First, it's a real bill, introduced by a real senator, one Jack Reed (D-R.I.). The bill was read twice on Feb. 24 of this year, then sent to the Committee on Finance for further consideration. I can vaguely remember a media ripple last winter that the Democrats were seeking to register all gun owners, but I guess I just assumed the revolutionaries had been suppressed and the second amendment to the constitution was still safe. Now I feel like Dustin Hoffman in "Marathon Man." Is it safe?
According to the summary of S. 2099, the Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000, if passed, will amend chapter 53 of the Internal Revenue Code to require the registration of handguns in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. The resulting data will be shared with all federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. In addition, the amendment will provide for the "imposition of [a] $5 transfer tax on handguns and a $50 tax upon the making of each handgun."
In Sen. Reed's own words on the floor of the U.S. Senate chamber, the bill "would require registration of all handguns, including those currently in private possession, and would make it a felony for any person to transfer a handgun to another individual without prior law enforcement approval."
Sen. Reed feels that law enforcement's enhanced ability to trace handguns used in crimes will help catch criminals and help "prevent handguns from falling into criminal hands in the first place." As you know, handguns don't "fall" into a criminal's hands. They are either sold to a criminal, which is already covered by prohibitive statutes, or they are stolen BY the criminal, during the commission of a crime. Emotional rhetoric is driving this train.
According to the S. 2099, "any person possessing any firearm...not registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record... shall register such handgun within one year of the date of the enactment of this [bill]." For purposes of assessing the transfer tax, "any registration of such handgun...shall be considered a transfer of such handgun." Even, apparently, if you are transferring the gun to yourself. No grandfathers, here.
Senator Reed assures us in his introductory speech that the Handgun Safety and Registration Act of 2000 will accomplish its intended goals "without restricting in any way the possession or sale of hunting rifles or shotguns used by law-abiding sportsmen across the country."
The only people this bill is going to restrict are the law-abiding handgun owners of this country. Criminals are going to continue to obtain their weapons through illegal means. Since, by definition, law-abiding citizens don't commit crimes, what possible gain is made from passage of this bill? Money and knowledge.
The Internal Revenue service gets a windfall of $5 per handgun already owned, $50 per handgun that is made, and the knowledge of who you are, what you have, and where you live.
That makes it so much easier when gun control revolutionaries take their "peace train" that extra step, on to your doorstep, and demand that you relinquish your weapons or face arrest.
Registration is just one station stop away from confiscation thus the e-mail warning and the call to action.
Gun control is not about controlling the criminal; it is about controlling the populace. For all those who've questioned through recent history how an atrocity such a Nazi Germany could come in to being, read up. Several years prior, all civilian weapons were confiscated. Prior to that, all guns were registered. In even more recent history, Great Britain demanded registration, and a few years laterconfiscation.
The only thing that separates us from tyranny is the ability to defend ourselves against it. Those who would sell our constitution, and our sovereignty, for a buck and a bit of our business should be stopped.
I have a complete list of e-mail contact information on every senator on the Committee for Finance available at your request. If this is just a bill languishing in committee that will never go anywhere anyway, as an aide for Sen. Richard Luger (R-Ind.) suggests, why not kill it publicly and end all doubt? Let's derail this train.
E-mail lobbying, by grassroots citizens no less now there's an urban legend.
[Your comments are welcome: ARileyFreePress@aol.com.]

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