> Point is, you haven't established that registering guns produces harassment
> by police in the US.
Registration->Confiscation. Ask anyone in California who registered their SKS in good faith.
[snip]
> But harassment, though it can ride on regulation in some
> instances, isn't produced by regulation. I do object to ID cards because
> they are a form of regulation that's easy to use against us, but why
> shouldn't property that has the potential for causing grave bodily harm
> (guns, cars, dogs) be given a number?
This discussion might be far more rewarding if you restricted yourself to facts. All guns manufactured or imported into the US must have a serial number. Transfers to private individuals must be recorded by the FFL holder. BATF frequently inspects FFL holder's logbooks. The BATF is only asked to trace 3% of guns used in violent crimes. Clearly being able to trace the pedigree of a certain gun is not believed to be useful for law enforcement or violence prevention.
Let's specifically state what you want....
[snip]
> Letting Joe Blow have an arsenal in his
> basement unbeknownst to the rest of us is not going to make the world a
> better place. Eh? Or what.
Ah, here it is. You want a list of individuals, not guns. Because we already have the gun list. You want the FBI to keep a list of individuals and a database of the guns they own.
Why? Because the thought that some person in your city might have a gun in his basement has produced a state of irrational fear.
How far are you willing to go to placate your fear? Perhaps you would sleep better if the police could randomly pull people over who are on the LIST? Or perhaps search their homes without a warrant, to make sure their registered guns are safely stowed away?
I find it hard to relate to this state of fear. When I played softball this summer I stood in front of a stranger holding a bat. Had he wanted, he could have swung the bat and crushed by skull. However this was not something I feared, since it is far more likely that I would be hit by a meteor or lightning than that this person would become psychotic at that moment and choose to attack me.
More children drown in bathtubs than are killed by guns. Letting parents bathe their children in an unsupervised area is not going to make the world a better place, eh? And such reckless practice kills more children than do guns.
Matt
-- Matt Cramer <cramer at voicenet.com> http://www.voicenet.com/~cramer/ A conspiracy theorist is the new name for what we used to call a journalist.
-Richard Theime