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Old February 1, 2021, 03:21 PM   #1
MuzzleBlast
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Gun registration-then-confiscation experiences

I'm looking for people who have lived in places that instituted a registry for guns, who then duly registered their guns, only to have them confiscated later. I would like details. Serious replies only, please.
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Old February 2, 2021, 02:06 AM   #2
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I don't know that we have a whole lot of British or Australian members here.
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Old February 2, 2021, 03:15 AM   #3
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California passed an assault weapons ban in I believe 1989. Then several years later they had poor compliance and offered an "amnesty" period. Then after tricking a bunch of people to register their guns they said, "sorry that extension wasn't legal, turn in those guns!".

In 2014 All guns including long guns had to be registered at point of sale.
https://reason.com/2014/01/03/califo...e-way-for-con/

The knee jerk enforcement has caused the state to go after people who try to comply with the law.

https://freebeacon.com/issues/califo...ister-firearm/


The state is also going after legally purchased guns once someone is disqualified for whatever reason from owning a gun. The list of reasons keeps growing.

https://briefing556.rssing.com/chan-...article17.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/calif...bill_n_3117238
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Old February 2, 2021, 09:45 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by rc
The state is also going after legally purchased guns once someone is disqualified for whatever reason from owning a gun. The list of reasons keeps growing.
Isn't that what they're supposed to do? Isn't one of our arguments against new anti-gun laws that we don't need more laws if they aren't enforcing the laws they already have?
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Old February 2, 2021, 10:06 AM   #5
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Besides the UK and Australia, you also have Germany, especially in the 30's..........
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Old February 2, 2021, 11:15 AM   #6
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Only 4 replies for Godwin. Even I am surprised.
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Old February 2, 2021, 01:11 PM   #7
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Let's skip "Nazi" references. The next time I see one in this thread, it will be closed.
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Old February 2, 2021, 03:20 PM   #8
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Look up the history and results of the Roberti-Roos laws in CA, and in particular their effect on SKS rifle owners.

I don't have cites or case names, sorry, but I do remember stories from the time, including one about an SKS owner who was a police officer. He duly registered the rifle when required, then a couple years later got a letter saying he had to turn it in, and when he took it to the police to turn it in was arrested for possession of an illegal assault rifle... never heard how it finally turned out.

This could just be a BS story, I have no way of knowing, but its not the only similar story from CA and that time period.

Something similar happened in NYC around the same time, required registration of "assault rifles" and then later a ban on their possession within the city. The difference in the NYC cases was that NYC was happy to let you keep owning the rifle, as long as it wasn't physically within NYC.
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Old February 2, 2021, 03:33 PM   #9
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What about Venezuela??
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Old February 2, 2021, 04:03 PM   #10
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Aguila, The OP asked about examples when registration was used for confiscation.
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Old February 2, 2021, 04:19 PM   #11
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Let's skip "Nazi" references.
Especially because they're very erroneous. I could go into detail on the history, but for the most part, there were very few confiscations of firearms under the Nazi regime. I really wish people would stop using it as an "example" of anything related to gun control.
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Old February 3, 2021, 12:05 AM   #12
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I guess it depends on where your sources come from Tom. Here is one from The American Rifleman (2001) that depicts that the previous perspective isn't "erroneous" as you claim. Interesting read, even if you and others on here don't / won't agree with it. The article is well written / supported and is about registration and the subsequent confiscation of firearms in 1930's Germany.

https://www.stephenhalbrook.com/regi...istration.html

"[I]The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been "disarmed" with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment."[/I(from previous link)]

Not exactly trivial numbers.

Last edited by shurshot; February 3, 2021 at 12:35 AM.
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Old February 3, 2021, 12:50 AM   #13
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They may not seem like trivial numbers, but compared to some Americans they are. If my ammo cache were confiscated they'd get considerably more than 20,000 rounds.

The point where the comparison with Nazi Germany is erroneous is comparing it to American gun control/confiscation. The Nazi's rarely confiscated the private firearms of "ethnically approved" Germans. They passed their "racial" laws against Jews and took their guns, and other property. US gun confiscation isn't targeted at any specific ethnic or racial group, its targeted against EVERYONE who has a firearm.

it's not an apples to apples fair comparison.

Not even close.
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Old February 3, 2021, 01:57 AM   #14
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I wonder if it has ever really happened in the US. My understanding was that, typically, existing guns were always grandfathered in, to avoid any kind of ex post facto issues. That is what happened in DC, for example, in the 70s, from my understanding.

There might be some examples from the US south during Jim Crow days, after United States v. Cruikshank (1875), when a lot of blacks in the south were disarmed. Would take some digging to find out that history.

Not that the threat does not exist. Registration has always seemed like the thinnest end of the wedge, even if only hypothetically (although if the Nicaraguans invade Colorado . . . !).
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Old February 3, 2021, 03:24 AM   #15
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During Katrina I understand LEO went door to door in some areas searching for and confiscating firearms. Anyone know if they were assisted by preexisting gun ownership data from any sources?
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Old February 3, 2021, 06:35 AM   #16
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44amp, I wasn't attempting to make an apples to apples comparison between 1930's Germany and the USA. The OP asked for examples of firsthand accounts of registration / confiscation, and Servo made a statement in post #11 that, well, go back and read it.

Ignoring and or minimizing gun registration and confiscation in 1930's Germany because it primarily targeted a specific ethnic / religious group makes ZERO sense to me. Registration / confiscation is just that (Gun control), no matter who is pursuing the Agenda or who is being disarmed. It's still Gun control, even if targeted at a specific group. Today it may be apples, tomorrow it may be oranges.

As written in The American Rifleman article link I previously posted;

"Registration makes it easy for a tyrannical government to confiscate firearms and to make prey of its subjects. Denying this historical fact is no more justified than denying that the Holocaust occurred or that the Nazis murdered millions of unarmed people." (Stephen P. Halbrook, Ph.D., J.D.)

Last edited by shurshot; February 3, 2021 at 07:58 AM.
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Old February 3, 2021, 11:11 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roscoe
I wonder if it has ever really happened in the US. My understanding was that, typically, existing guns were always grandfathered in, to avoid any kind of ex post facto issues. That is what happened in DC, for example, in the 70s, from my understanding.
That's a generalization that you should not count on.

For example: After the Sandy Hook school shooting, Connecticut changed the language of their assault weapons ban law in a way that made formerly legal "post-ban" AR-15s into assault weapons. They created a window of time, within which all newly-designated assault weapons had to be registered with the State Police. Some time after all that, I was on a jon site with a guy from Connecticut who owned an AR-15. That registration law came up in a discussion over lunch one day. He got a deer in headlights look on his face and told us that he didn't know about the law and he hadn't registered his AR-15. He asked if he should register it. The answer was that he couldn't -- the window had closed months before. His choices were to (a) move the rifle out of Connecticut; (b) sell the rifle out of Connecticut; or (c) keep the rifle and risk being arrested for a felony.

I don't know which he chose. It doesn't matter. That was then, and this is now. I don't think it would be correct to say that existing guns have "always" been grandfathered in. Even if they have mostly been grandfathered in the past, that doesn't mean they will be grandfathered in any potential future legislation.
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Old February 3, 2021, 01:35 PM   #18
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assault

You have a weapon;
Afterwards it is banned;
your defense may be ex post facto.
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Old February 3, 2021, 02:22 PM   #19
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I believe the CA assault rifle law (Roberti-Roos) from the late 80s included an ex post facto provision in it. It required registration of rifles purchased BEFORE the effective date of the law.

As I recall, it was one of the more legally objectional parts of the law, but I don't think anything was actually ever done to change it.

Making things a crime after the fact is not a principle generally held to in US law. Unless its a gun control law, where it seems to now be a favored tactic.
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Old February 3, 2021, 02:24 PM   #20
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Originally Posted by ammo.crafter View Post
You have a weapon;
Afterwards it is banned;
your defense may be ex post facto.
That's not what ex post facto means. Ex post facto is more than just making something illegal; it's prosecuting someone for doing something at a point when it was legal.

For example:
1. I own a SuperWidget on Monday.
2. On Tuesday, the legislature passes a law that makes Possession of a SuperWidget highly illegal, with an effective date of Thursday.
3. On Wednesday, I sell my SuperWidget.
4. On Friday, the gov't arrests me and starts a prosecution for my Possession of the SuperWidget (which ended before the law took effect).
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Old February 3, 2021, 03:00 PM   #21
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I believe the California 89 law said you could not transfer the registered rifle to your heirs. So ownership and tracking also came with an eventual confiscation implication.
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Old February 3, 2021, 03:17 PM   #22
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Quote:
Interesting read, even if you and others on here don't / won't agree with it. The article is well written / supported and is about registration and the subsequent confiscation of firearms in 1930's Germany.
Another member was curious about it, and I explained it in a PM. I'll cut and paste it here:

Halbrook is a brilliant legal scholar but he's not a historian. He ignores the fact that there were very few guns in civilian hands, much less in the hands of Jewish citizens, when the Third Reich came into power. Most of the gun-control laws in Germany came from the prior regime, the Weimar Republic, and its attempts to comply with the Treaty of Versailles. In 1919, the Reichstag enacted legislation requiring the surrender of nearly all guns to the government.

By the time Hitler came into power, German arms production had been nearly nonexistent for two decades. He actually loosened the country's gun laws quite a bit. Handguns and handgun ammunition required registration, but long guns and their ammunition were deregulated. Members of the NSDAP were completely exempted.

The 1938 Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons was symbolic at most. Even prior to the Weimar Republic, the country had a long history of virulent anti-Semitism. No gun dealer had been willing to sell to Jews for fear of reprisal for decades before Hitler's rise to power. Sure, the 1938 law was racist. Sure, a few guns might have been confiscated.

But whatever supply they might have had in the first place was meager at best, and the idea that they could have resisted the Nazis with the force of small arms just doesn't wash.

Many smart people have been taken in because someone works the Holocaust and gun confiscation into the same thesis, but it's woefully deficient.
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Old February 3, 2021, 11:34 PM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Servo View Post
Another member was curious about it, and I explained it in a PM. I'll cut and paste it here:

Halbrook is a brilliant legal scholar but he's not a historian. He ignores the fact that there were very few guns in civilian hands, much less in the hands of Jewish citizens, when the Third Reich came into power. Most of the gun-control laws in Germany came from the prior regime, the Weimar Republic, and its attempts to comply with the Treaty of Versailles. In 1919, the Reichstag enacted legislation requiring the surrender of nearly all guns to the government.

By the time Hitler came into power, German arms production had been nearly nonexistent for two decades. He actually loosened the country's gun laws quite a bit. Handguns and handgun ammunition required registration, but long guns and their ammunition were deregulated. Members of the NSDAP were completely exempted.

The 1938 Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons was symbolic at most. Even prior to the Weimar Republic, the country had a long history of virulent anti-Semitism. No gun dealer had been willing to sell to Jews for fear of reprisal for decades before Hitler's rise to power. Sure, the 1938 law was racist. Sure, a few guns might have been confiscated.

But whatever supply they might have had in the first place was meager at best, and the idea that they could have resisted the Nazis with the force of small arms just doesn't wash.

Many smart people have been taken in because someone works the Holocaust and gun confiscation into the same thesis, but it's woefully deficient.
Yeah, I don't think anyone was up to resisting the Wehrmacht and Gestapo with a handful of hunting arms. Not in any meaningful way.
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Old February 4, 2021, 12:43 PM   #24
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Tom said:
"But whatever supply they might have had in the first place was meager at best, and the idea that they could have resisted the Nazis with the force of small arms just doesn't wash.
"Many smart people have been taken in because someone works the Holocaust and gun confiscation into the same thesis, but it's woefully deficient."

Then roscoe said:
"Yeah, I don't think anyone was up to resisting the Wehrmacht and Gestapo with a handful of hunting arms. Not in any meaningful way."

I think the point might be not that a few people could have resisted the established Wehrmacht and Gestapo, but that very early in the rise of the Nazis, when a small number of brown shirts commited the first violent acts against jews and liberals, that armed self defense at that time might have changed the course of events.
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Old February 4, 2021, 01:06 PM   #25
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Now we are getting to something worth discussing! But probably beyond the scope of this thread in my non-moderator opinion.
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