2 Sept 13
“Cogito, ergo armatum sum” (I think, therefore I am armed)
It has been said that bureaucracies do only one thing well: promote themselves!
There is little doubt that bureaucrats spend much of their time justifying their existence, and insisting that our Civilization would never survive ten minutes without them.
As direct result of the JFK assassination in TX in 1963, and the subsequent assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy (RFK), both in 1968, then president, LBJ, signed into law the infamous “1968 Gun-Control Act,” which created an army of licensed federal gun-dealers, who are all required to keep records of retail sales of guns. The selling point for the bill was that guns used in crimes could be subsequently “traced,” from manufacturer, to distributer, to retailer, to first owner. Other than providing “filler-footage” for CNN, it was never explained how any of this information would ever be of significant assistance in solving murders and other violent crimes.
In fact, it has yet to be explained!
However, dutifully padding their statistics, bureaucrats point that most such “traces” are “successful.” They just decline to define “success!”
The “trace” only identifies the gun’s first, private owner. But, the average age of guns used in crimes is fifteen years, and so most such guns have subsequently had multiple owners. Many have been stolen, several times! Thus, “successful traces” are almost never of any value in identifying real suspects.
That part is usually left out of reports!
Some have suggested “universal checks,” on every legal transfer, even temporary, as a “solution.” However, we’ve already discovered such laws are ponderous and unenforceable and place an impossible burden on innocent gun-owners, while doing nothing to stem real, violent crime.
Of course, punishing their “enemies” (aka: non-supporters) is all that interests liberal politicians anyway. Honest gun-owners have no friends on the left!
“Our most persistent delusion is that evil is curable through legislation”
TB Reed
/John
