Concealed weapons: Congress can pass a law banning an arbitrary list of firearms, but it can't make Americans obey it

National Review, Sept 26, 1994 by Bryan R. Johnson

are common, and some applications are

delayed for years, for no valid reason? To

St. Louis, where gun permits have routinely

been denied to homosexuals, nonvoters,

and wives who lack their husbands'

permission? New Zealand gun

owners have good reason to trust their

nation's police to administer laws fairly;

United States gun owners have every reason

not to.

The countries studied by Kopel were all democracies, but non-compliance with gun control exists under dictatorships as well. The NRA's Paul Blackman recalls a conversation he had a number of years ago with a Yugoslavian journalist. The journalist asked why the NRA was so strongly opposed to the registration of firearms. Blackman explained that registration might ultimately lead to confiscation. "Of course," the Yugoslavian agreed, "but that's why we keep other guns buried in our back yard."

Kopel believes non-compliance with the federal "assault weapon' ban will be between 90 and 99 per cent, primarily because of the fear that registration of the firearms on the list is just the first step toward confiscation, followed by registration (and future confiscation) of additional firearms. If so many gun owners are unwilling to register their firearms, what will they do with them? Survivalists and extremist groups such as the Minutemen of the 1960s have had long experience with hiding arms, but the interest in what is euphemistically called "long-term storage' has increased dramatically since 1990. At least one how-to book on the subject has been published, and several companies now offer supplies that help protect long metal objects from rust for several years. The firearms press reports that more and more gun owners are buying pieces of nine-inch-diameter PVC pipe with end caps.

Even the largest mainstream gun magazine, Guns & Ammo, has broached the subject of burying firearms. Part of the Petersen chain of hobby magazines (which includes Motor Trend and Skin Diver), Guns Ammo is usually concerned with showcasing new products for sport shooters, but it finds that it has to be more politically minded than its sister magazines (after all, no one is trying to ban oxygen tanks for skin divers). Hence the May 1994 issue of the magazine Omnibus Crime Bill. The ban, introduced by Representative Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), forbids the manufacture and sale of certain semiautomatic firearms and of ammunition magazines that hold more than ten rounds.

Although the stated purpose of the ban--as of the bill as a whole--is to reduce crime, no well-informed person can reasonably expect it to do so. Writing in the New York Times just before passage of the bill, gun-control advocate Osha Gray Davidson observed: "Such a ban would not make our streets safer, and it would not reduce gun violence. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about the measure is that the NRA is against it. But even the extremists in charge of the rifle association can sometimes be right, and they happen to be right on this one. The 19 models of 'assault weapons' that would be banned by this bill are indistinguishable from dozens of other guns that would not be."