Connecticut Gun Owners: “Come and Get Them!”

By Michael Schaus

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Connecticut gun owners are calling the state’s anti-gun bluff. The state recently passed a slew of anti-gun legislation, including a gun registration program for so called “assault rifles” that has been received with less enthusiasm than Obamacare. In fact, many gun owners in Connecticut have elected to ignore the patently unconstitutional law in the same way that Millennials have ignored the IRS requirement for health insurance. And now, as the state issues threatening letters and increased confiscation rhetoric, citizens are telling the state: “Come and take them.”

Lawmakers in Connecticut have already threatened current gun owners with confiscation in accordance with the new regulation requirements. And despite a fraction of state gun owners deciding to comply with intrusive registration requirements, the Governor has accelerated his anti-gun rhetoric. (Colorado voters decided to hold recall elections… Connecticut gun owners have decided to take the Barack Obama approach: Ignore inconvenient laws.) Letters have been sent to “known gun owners” demanding registration, or the surrender of their “assault weapons”. The birth place of the Constitution, it turns out, is still home to armed students of human liberty.

Despite the strong rhetoric, and threatened legal action, citizens have remained stunningly unphased by the authoritarian nature of Connecticut’s gun registration scheme. In fact, Connecticut Carry (a decidedly pro-Second Amendment group) has even gone so far as to challenge the state to go door-to-door:

Connecticut Carry calls on every State official, every Senator, and every Representative, to make the singular decision: Either enforce the laws as they are written and let us fight it out in court, or repeal the 2013 Gun Ban in its entirety.

Connecticut Carry has essentially called their state’s bluff: “Repeal the law, or start confiscating”. After all, going door to door, in an effort to confiscate the guns of well-armed citizens, seems like a mildly insane idea… Even in wildly liberal havens such as Hartford.

Connecticut’s assault on self-defense is not, unfortunately, an isolated incident. The NYPD has started a similar gun confiscation program in New York, and New Jersey (judging by their rhetoric) is not far behind. New Jersey, as it turns out, is next in line to butcher the Second Amendment into an unrecognizable web of regulation and restriction as they consider banning .22 Rugers and Henry Rifles… Because, well, such guns could be used in a crime. Recently proposed gun legislation in the Garden State would outlaw the ownership of any rifle that has a capacity of more than 10 rounds… Because, as studies have shown, it is usually the 11th round that is used in a violent crime. (Um… I’m still waiting for someone to create that sarcasm font for me.)

Apparently, Connecticut, Colorado, New York, California, New Jersey, and a growing number of other states, believe it is acceptable to restrict their citizen’s rights on the supposition that those rights might be misused to inflict damage on the greater populace. George Washington is often attributed a quotation that articulates such injustice as a violation of human rights: It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.

In the end, it is neither the legislators, the governors, nor the courts that are the final arbitrator of justice. It is the people. The un-elected masses. Connecticut gun owners are essentially calling on the state to either begin confiscation (and prosecution) of Connecticut’s gun owners… Or shut up and repeal the latest batch of unenforceable gun restrictions; because they understand that laws have little bearing when they infringe upon the common understanding of liberty. And that’s not the interpretation of some right-wing gun nut… Unless, of course, that’s how you describe Thomas Jefferson. Connecticut will soon find itself involved in a protracted legal debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment… Or they will be in the precarious position of confiscating weapons from otherwise law-abiding (well-armed) citizens.

Write whatever laws you want… If you can’t enforce them, they’re as useless as President Obama’s foreign policy.