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Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
good read:
THE ONLY QUESTION ABOUT GUN REGISTRATION Dear Editor, by Alan Korwin Only one thing is overlooked in the common-sense proposals to register guns, so here it is. How exactly would writing down my name, or your name, help arrest criminals or make you safer? Although at first blush, gun listing has a sort of tantalizing appeal, on reflection you have to wonder whether gun lists would be an instrument of crime control at all. The unfortunate answer is that, no matter how good it feels when the words first pass your ears, registering honest gun owners doesn't stop criminals, and in fact focuses in exactly the opposite direction. It is an allocation of resources that has no chance of achieving its goal, if that goal is the reduction of crime. 1. Registering 70 million American households is extremely expensive. Do you know what it takes to run a database that big? You need 19,000 changes daily, just to keep up with people who move every ten years. Floor after floor of cubicle after cubicle for employees with permanent jobs, payroll, parking and dry cleaning bills. It's a government jobs program all by itself, all in the common sense -- but deceptive name -- of stopping crime. How many criminals do you figure will register when all is said and done? That's right, none, and the planners know that. All that money and time, invested on tracking the innocent. That's why so many police departments are against it -- they'll be forced to run huge data centers with their limited resources, and hire clerks instead of cops. 2. Americans who fail to register would become felons without committing a crime. Under registration, activity that is a common practice and has been perfectly legal since inception makes you a felon. Think about that. Possession of private property would subject you to felony arrest, if the property isn't on the government's master list. Boy, that doesn't sound like the American way. No other evil is needed, there is no victim and no inherent criminal act takes place. Paperwork equals prison. That's just wrong. 3. Registration, if enacted, will create an underground market for unregistered guns bigger than the drug trade. How many times must an elite forbid what the public wants, before learning the unintended consequences of outlawing liberties? People get what they want either way, it's just a question of how much crime the government itself forces to accompany it. With respect to guns, the last thing you want to encourage is the creative import programs and price supports that drug dealers enjoy, for gun runners. 4. People have said to me, "But Alan, if all guns were registered and there was a crime, then you could tell." Tell what? If your neighbor is shot, that's not probable cause to search everyone with a matching caliber in a ten-block radius. The evidence needed to conclusively link a person to a crime has no connection at all to a registration plan -- you need motive, opportunity, witnesses, physical evidence, the murder weapon. Police aren't waiting for official lists so they can start catching murderers. Gun registration schemes lack a crime prevention component. 5. You don't really think authorities would use gun registration lists to confiscate weapons from people, do you? Despite real-life examples recently of exactly that in New York, California and Louisiana, and global history for the past century, this couldn't really happen, do you think? Who would even support such a thing in a country like America, with its Bill of Rights? The guarantees against confiscating property, unwarranted seizures and the right to keep and bear arms would surely forestall any such abuse of power. Are there really U.S. politician who would support firearm seizures? (Unfortunately, it's a long list of usual suspects.) And what about the so-called First Amendment test? If it's OK for arms it must pass muster for words too. Why would an honest writer object to being on the government list of approved writers? Why indeed. Pile logic on logic, some people just feel the government should register everything, just to keep control. When government has that much control, you no longer possess your liberties. You're living where government lists define who can do what, and where people control trumps crime control -- the gun registration model precisely. This form of "gun control" isn't about guns, it's about control. I might favor registration if the system would include criminals. In fact, I'd favor testing the system on them first. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a widely known case (Haynes v. U.S., 1968), has already determined that a felon who has a gun cannot be compelled to complete such forms, because it violates the Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. That's right, registration -- not in your case of course but in the case of a criminal -- is a self-indictment of a crime, and is therefore prohibited. Gun listing is a feel-good deception that passes unquestioned by the "news" media, engorges the federal or state bureaucracy, and undercuts the linchpins of American freedoms. It has no more place in a free society than a government authorized list of words, and should be rejected outright. Elected officials who promote such a scheme are opposing the very Constitution they take an oath to preserve, protect and defend, and deserve to be removed from office. Sincerely, Alan Korwin, Author Gun Laws of America Alan Korwin is the author seven books on gun law, and can be reached at gunlaws.com. Contact: Alan Korwin BLOOMFIELD PRESS "We publish the gun laws." 4848 E. Cactus, #505-440, Scottsdale, AZ 85254 602-996-4020 Phone, 602-494-0679 FAX http://www.gunlaws.com/gunreggie.htm |
Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
Felon with unregistered firearm=BIG JAIL TIME
non felon with unregistered firearm= slap on the wrist PERIOD. |
Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
Thank god I live in Oregon.
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Thankfully we have no registration law, and we're a "shall issue" CCW state. (The first to pass such a law, I might add.) |
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Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
Haven't convicted felons had their constitutional rights taken away already??
I'm pretty sure felons can't own guns at all. Quote:
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If a felon is caught with a firearm, he will go to jail for being a felon in possession of a firearm, but to require him to come forward and fill out a registration form on a gun he isn't supposed to have is self-incrimination. |
Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
If gun ownership is preserved to oppose tyrants, it is certain the tyrants will declare the revolutionaries to be felons.
Just something to think about when you hear the call to restrict felons post incarceration rights. |
Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
I don't think a felony conviction alone should preclude anyone from owning a firearm. There are many felonies that someone can commit that should have no bearing on the ability to legally own a gun. Writing a bad check above a certain amount is a felony.
As I mentioned earlier, the gun laws don't keep the felons from having guns anyway. They can find'em if they want'em. |
Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
I just made that a bulletin on Myspace. :yes:
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Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
The Fifth Amendment, Self-Incrimination, and Gun Registration
by Clayton Cramer A recurring question that we are asked, not only by gun control advocates, but even by a number of gun owners is, "What's wrong with mandatory gun registration?" Usually by the time we finish telling them about the Supreme Court decision U.S. v. Haynes (1968), they are laughing -- and they understand our objection to registration. In Haynes v. U.S. (1968), a Miles Edward Haynes appealed his conviction for unlawful possession of an unregistered short-barreled shotgun. [1] His argument was ingenious: since he was a convicted felon at the time he was arrested on the shotgun charge, he could not legally possess a firearm. Haynes further argued that for a convicted felon to register a gun, especially a short-barreled shotgun, was effectively an announcement to the government that he was breaking the law. If he did register it, as 26 U.S.C. sec.5841 required, he was incriminating himself; but if he did not register it, the government would punish him for possessing an unregistered firearm -- a violation of 26 U.S.C. sec.5851. Consequently, his Fifth Amendment protection against self- incrimination ("No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself") was being violated -- he would be punished if he registered it, and punished if he did not register it. While the Court acknowledged that there were circumstances where a person might register such a weapon without having violated the prohibition on illegal possession or transfer, both the prosecution and the Court acknowledged such circumstances were "uncommon." [2] The Court concluded: We hold that a proper claim of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm under sec.5841 or for possession of an unregistered firearm under sec.5851. [3] This 8-1 decision (with only Chief Justice Earl Warren dissenting) is, depending on your view of Fifth Amendment, either a courageous application of the intent of the self-incrimination clause, or evidence that the Supreme Court had engaged in reductio ad absurdum of the Fifth Amendment. Under this ruling, a person illegally possessing a firearm, under either federal or state law, could not be punished for failing to register it. [4] Consider a law that requires registration of firearms: a convicted felon can not be convicted for failing to register a gun, because it is illegal under Federal law for a felon to possess a firearm; but a person who can legally own a gun, and fails to register it, can be punished. In short, the person at whom, one presumes, such a registration law is aimed, is the one who cannot be punished, and yet, the person at whom such a registration law is not principally aimed (i.e., the law-abiding person), can be punished. This is especially absurd for the statute under which Haynes was tried -- the National Firearms Act of 1934. This law was originally passed during the Depression, when heavily armed desperadoes roamed the nation, robbing banks and engaging in kidnap for ransom. The original intent of the National Firearms Act was to provide a method for locking up ex-cons that the government was unable to convict for breaking any other law. As Attorney General Homer Cummings described the purpose of the law, when testifying before Congress: Now, you say that it is easy for criminals to get weapons. I know it, but I want to make it easy to convict them when they have the weapons. That is the point of it. I do not expect criminals to comply with this law; I do not expect the underworld to be going around giving their fingerprints and getting permits to carry these weapons, but I want them to be in a position, when I find such a person, to convict him because he has not complied. During the same questioning, Cummings expressed his belief that, "I have no fear of the law-abiding citizen getting into trouble." Rep. Fred Vinson of Kentucky, while agreeing with Cummings' desire to have an additional tool for locking up gangsters, pointed out that many laws that sounded like good ideas when passed, were sometimes found "in the coolness and calmness of retrospect" to be somewhat different in their consequences. [5] Unfortunately, Rep. Vinson's concern about law-abiding people running afoul of registration laws, while criminals run free, turned out to be prophetic. The same year as the Haynes decision, the New York City Gun Control Law was challenged in the courts. The statute sought to bring shotguns and rifles under the same sort of licensing restrictions as handguns. Edward Grimm and a number of others filed suit against the City of New York, seeking to overturn the city ordinance. Grimm, et. al., raised a number of objections to the law during the trial, most of which were based on the Second Amendment. After the trial but before the decision had been completed, the Haynes decision appeared. Grimm's attorneys pointed out the implications for New York City's gun registration requirement. The trial court held that the legislative intent of the law was: that there existed an evil in the misuse of rifles and shotguns by criminals and persons not qualified to use these weapons and that the ease with which the weapons could be obtained was of concern... [6] Yet on the subject of the Haynes decision: In this court's reading of the Haynes decision, it is inapposite to the statute under consideration here. The registration requirement in Haynes was "...directed principally at those persons who have obtained possession of a firearm without complying with the Act's other requirements, and who therefore are immediately threatened by criminal prosecutions... They are unmistakably persons 'inherently suspect of criminal activities.'"... The City of New York's Gun Control Law is not aimed at persons inherently suspect of criminal activities. It is regulatory in nature. Accordingly, Haynes does not stand as authority for plaintiffs' position. [7] In three pages, the court went from claiming that the registration law was intended to stop "an evil in the misuse of rifles and shotguns by criminals" to admitting that it was "not aimed at persons inherently suspect of criminal activities." Nor is Grimm an exceptional case. A number of other judicial decisions have upheld gun registration laws, specifically because they did not apply to criminals, but only to law-abiding citizens. During the turbulent late 1960s, Toledo, Ohio, passed an ordinance that required handgun owners to obtain an identification card. [8] The plaintiffs attacked the law on a number of points, [9] including the issue of self-incrimination. Regarding the Fifth Amendment, the Court of Common Pleas asserted that application for a handgun owner's identification card (effectively, registration of gun owners) did not make a person "inherently suspect of criminal activities." (This quotation suggests the judge writing this opinion was aware of the Haynes decision, although not cited.) The court pointed out that unless the plaintiffs had been prohibited persons within the Toledo ordinance, the Fifth Amendment would have provided them no protection. Only criminals were protected from a mandatory registration law -- not law-abiding people. Later that same year, in the Ohio case State v. Schutzler (1969), Gale Leroy Schutzler attempted to quash an indictment for failure to register a submachine gun in accordance with O.R.C. sec.2923.04, which required registration of automatic weapons. [10] At the original trial, Schutzler argued that the registration requirement violated his Fifth Amendment rights, based on Haynes. On appeal, the Court of Common Pleas did not agree with any of Schutzler's arguments, including his citation of the Fifth Amendment. Where the Haynes decision was based on the fact that Haynes was an ex-felon, and therefore his possession of a sawed-off shotgun was illegal, Schutzler was not breaking the law by possession; his only violation of the law was his failure to register the submachine gun and post a $5000 bond. [11] Had he been an ex-felon, the Haynes decision would have protected him. Because he was not a convicted criminal, he did not receive the benefit of the Fifth Amendment's protection. In State v. Hamlin (1986), a case involving an unregistered short-barreled shotgun, the Louisiana Supreme Court refused to apply the Haynes precedent, because the Louisiana statute specifically prohibited the government from using registration information to prosecute convicted felons in possession of a firearm. The Louisiana registration law had been "sanitized" in a manner similar to the 1968 revision to the National Firearms Act, 26 U.S.C. sec.5801, which required that no information obtained from gun registration could be used against a person who could not legally possess a gun -- convicted felons could register their machine guns or short-barreled shotguns with complete confidence that they would not be prosecuted for illegal possession. [12] If mandatory gun registration can't be used to punish ex-felons in possession of a firearm, what purpose does such a law serve? If mandatory gun registration can only be used to punish people that can legally possess a gun, why bother? Because of the Haynes decision, if we want to punish ex-felons who are caught in possession of a gun, there are only two choices available: We must either skip registration, so that we can severely punish gun possession by those who aren't allowed to own guns; or use the "sanitized" form of registration law -- where the criminal is guaranteed that gun registration can't hurt him, while the rest of us can be punished for failure to comply. It sounds paranoid to suggest that gun registration records might be used in the future to confiscate guns -- although the second director of Handgun Control, Inc. has stated explicitly that mandatory registration is one of the steps towards prohibition of handgun ownership [13] -- but when we examine how the courts have crippled gun registration laws so that felons are effectively exempt, and only law-abiding citizens need to fear such laws, what other explanation can there be for the continuing plea for mandatory gun registration? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clayton E. Cramer is a software engineer with a telecommunications manufacturer in Northern California. His first book, By The Dim And Flaring Lamps: The Civil War Diary of Samuel McIlvaine, was published in 1990. Rhonda L. Cramer is completing her B.A. in English. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Haynes v. U.S., 390 U.S. 85, 88, 88 S.Ct. 722, 725 (1968). 2. Haynes v. U.S., 390 U.S. 85, 96, 88 S.Ct. 722, 730 (1968). 3. Haynes v. U.S., 390 U.S. 85, 100, 88 S.Ct. 722, 732 (1968). 4. Haynes v. U.S., 390 U.S. 85, 98, 88 S.Ct. 722, 730 (1968). 5. National Firearms Act: Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means, 73rd Cong., 2nd sess., (Washington, DC, Government Printing Office: 1934), 21-22. 6. Grimm v. City of New York, 56 Misc.2d 525, 289 N.Y.S.2d 358, 361 (1968) 7. Grimm v. City of New York, 56 Misc.2d 525, 289 N.Y.S.2d 358, 364 (1968) 8. Photos v. City of Toledo, 19 Ohio Misc. 147, 250 N.E.2d 916 (Ct.Comm.Pleas 1969). 9. Photos v. City of Toledo, 19 Ohio Misc. 147, 250 N.E.2d 916, 923 (Ct.Comm.Pleas 1969). 10. State v. Schutzler, 249 N.E.2d 549 (Ohio Ct.Comm.Pleas 1969). 11. State v. Schutzler, 249 N.E.2d 549, 552 (Ohio Ct.Comm.Pleas 1969). 12. State v. Hamlin, 497 So.2d 1369, 1372 (La. 1986). 13. Richard Harris, "A Reporter At Large: Handguns", The New Yorker, July, 26, 1976, 57-58. A fascinating interview, Shields also describes the founder of Handgun Control, Inc., as a "retired CIA official" who was its first director -- without pay. For those people who regard the CIA as a secret government with nefarious motives, this will doubtless make them wonder about the origins of Handgun Control's current policies in support of prohibition of those rifles which are most necessary to restrain domestic tyranny. |
Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
I like the logic in this thread. Furthermore, I agree with it.
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Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
Only a fool would register. NEVER EVER REGISTER. It's the first step to confiscation.
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Agreed......But..........In some States like ours we have no alternative. If we want to buy anything from any State it needs to be FFL transferred. There is not a lot of trunk sales here as it is an island :wink: So while we agree whole heartily we have no means of acquiring. The original post was great btw Emc2 & thanks for that |
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Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
What if the felon does his time and is released from jail, should he be allowed to own a firearm? I think so. If not you are not being consistent with the idea of what jail is meant to be.
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Re: Felons who have a gun not compelled to register because it violates 5Th Amendment
Nowadays ANYTHING is a felony! They charge you with a felony to get you to plead to a misdemeanor.
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When I was at the Florida Gun Store I was slack Jaw astounded to see calls being made for the NICS check and 30 seconds later(if that) people walking out with there side arms When I asked about providing make, model, caliber and serial # The guy tried not to laugh at me. He said THIS IS FLORIDA WE DONT DO THAT SHYT DOWN HERE. We copy just the basic info and stick it in warehouse with the other 6 billion yellow forms (try confiscation using that) Not harping on you Im just thinking out loud........ Free States are really something to admire. Hell I just found out that Delaware is a state that actually has on the books OPEN CARRY :ok: T |
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:wink: |
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They can only have it inside their house, not outside or in the car. And IIRC, they cannot purchase, only retain possession of one they owned prior to the conviction. Shotguns and rifles IIRC but no hand guns. I don't think black powder has any restriction at all, just the age limit of being over 16 or 18 years old. Blorp |
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Sitting through court is unbelievable how many people will take it and say thank you while doing it. |
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And people wonder why I'm so dead against Concealed Carry Permit/Application/Registration ... The smell of a trap. . |
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I guess it's too much work for most people to look up the legal definition of words like "license" and "permit". I guess the rest just don't care - in which case - why bother? When you carry, you exercise a right. When you carry with a permit, you exercise a special privilege after seeking permission. I don't believe in privileges. I have rights only. God-given. . |
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Right to heart of the matter . |
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