ObiRich said:
You know, part of me says I want to be a law abiding citizen, but another part of me says they don't have enough jail space and ankle bracelets if every gun owner said "Nuts!"
Agreed. The question is, what are the options?
You can move to a free(er) State.
You can dispose of your guns/mags while still legal.
You can register and presumably still use your guns/mags legally.
Or you can refuse to register, become a criminal, risk what may be a felony conviction and loss of all RKBA (as well as bankruptcy, etc) because you chose to own an item without registering it when that is now the legal requirement, and basically not be able to use your now illegal gun/mag for risk of being caught, forfeiting it as contraband, and facing conviction. Even if you don't use the gun/mag in public, what do you do with it? Keep it in the house and you have the risk (maybe very small for most of us) of it coming to light during a house fire, a burglary, domestic dispute, or other event where the police have legal cause to search the home. A nasty breakup or divorce could turn into a felony if the ex decides to rat you out. A home invasion, burglary, or missing child could become a much bigger problem than it already was. An otherwise clean and justified self-defense shooting of a home invader gets really ugly if you've used an illegal gun/magazine, or even if one turns up as the police investigate. What? Do we really think the cops are unable to poke through your entire gun collection when there is a dead guy laying in the living room?
So refusing to register while keeping the now illegal gun/mag relegates you to either assuming some level of risk to keep the gun/mag handy, or to the proverbial burying it in the backyard. And exactly how much good does the gun/mag do me buried even if I do manage to do that in such a way that it won't be found and won't be destroyed by rust in short (or even long) order?
I've given this some thought, and I'm just not sure I see much benefit to keeping items that are illegal. I can't use them and their presence poses a risk.
Obviously, the best thing to do is to put in the work up front to make sure that our RKBA is not criminalized any further than it already is.
But once an item is banned? What to do. If they announced they were banning guns today and would be rounding us up to send us to the gas chambers or concentration/re-education camps tomorrow, it would be easy, right? Time to start shooting. Which is why that will never happen.
I'm just trying to envision a scenario where having something like an illegal gun or magazine buried is of much benefit. Maybe if you have a remote cabin or camping site where you plan to bug out in the event of Armageddon or martial law, having some things properly hidden there would make sense. You head out knowing that when you get there you're making your last stand if the zombies or enemy forces ever show up in your corner of the wilderness. But in an urban/suburban area? I'm having a hard time imagining up a scenario where I have enough notice that I need the gun to dig it up and yet that notice is obvious enough that I know now is the time to get the gun because being caught with the illegal gun is less bad than being caught without it.
Thoughts on this subject?
Charles