Laws requiring gun owners to report 'lost or stolen' guns blame the victims of crime

Finally, and perhaps most damningly, the one group of people who cannot be prosecuted under this kind of legislation is the group most likely to pose the real threat to society. Felons and other people prohibited from owning firearms cannot be charged with failure to report a lost or stolen gun, because requiring them to do so would violate their Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination (for the crime of having possessed the gun in the first place). I would argue that any law that can only be used to punish non-felons is a deeply flawed law.

The reason this type of law has become popular with the anti-rights crowd is that it is easy to convince the uninitiated that it is "reasonable," and that opposition to it is unreasonable. The passage of such laws would be billed by groups like the Brady Campaign as yet another "good first step" (every gun law is called a "good first step"--gun control has a lot of "first steps"). In reality, not only is such a step far from the first, it is also in the wrong direction. [More]

The St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner article for today is now up. Having just discussed here the likelihood of a push for "lost or stolen" reporting requirements in Illinois, I figured this would be a good time to explain to a more general audience some of the problems with such a law. Please give it a look.

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Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:

• Atlanta: Self defense is harmful to the environment


• Austin: Gun control and addiction (Part 2)


• Charlotte: Prize fight for the Second Amendment: Levy vs. Henigan


• Cleveland: Mainstream media blaming U.S. for Mexico's drug wars, U.S. citizens not buying it


• DC: Federal court's injunction against National Park gun ban repeal fails giggle test


• Denver: Who is buying the guns in Mexico?


• Los Angeles: Saturday Special: Revealing the Second Amendment, Part II.


• Milwaukee: New anti-gun ”feel good” bills now in committee in WI Capital. CORRECTION


• Minneapolis: Should blogging require government registration?


• National: What does 'Operation Southbound Steel' tell us about smuggling U.S. guns to Mexico?


• Seattle: SeaTac ‘open carry’ gathering sends signal to criminals


• Wisconsin: If you open carry - Wisconsin laws you must know