When you purchase a firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensed dealer (FFL), that dealer is required by law to record on Form 4473 your name, address, Social Security Number (optional but the background check takes longer), answers to various questions, photo ID, and what firearm you’re buying including the make, model, and serial number. All of this information must be stored by the gun dealer for 20 years. If the dealer goes out of business before the 20 years are up, those records are required to be shipped to the ATF where the records are not to be scanned or otherwise digitized (inner conspiracy theorist says, “Yeah okay.”) This is bad enough. However, in places like New York and more recently Boulder, CO, it’s getting worse (emphasis and comments mine):
BOULDER, Colo. — The Boulder City Council has voted to approve a ban on so-called “assault” weapons, bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.
The vote at Tuesday’s city council meeting was unanimous.
The most recent version of the ordinance defined “assault” weapons as “semi-automatic firearms designed with military features to allow rapid spray firing for the quick and efficient killing of humans.”
Anyone who legally owns an assault-style weapon in Boulder before June 15 would be allowed to keep it under the new rules. However, they would have until December 31 to:
* Get a background check (for a firearm they already own)
* Obtain a certificate from the Boulder Police Department saying they own the weapon (another name for registration)
* Find a safe place to store the weapon
* Only possess the weapon on their property or at a gun shop (unclear if you can take it to a range or in the woods to shoot)
* Report theft within 48 hoursHowever, the owners who are grandfathered in to the ordinance would not be allowed to own a multi-burst trigger, high-capacity magazines or bump stocks.
After June 15th, buying and selling these weapons is prohibited. Also, if a Boulder resident inherits the weapon from someone else that was grandfathered in, it will not be legal for the person who inherits the weapon. Instead, they would have 90 days to render it permanently inoperable, transfer it to a firearms dealer, permanently remove it from Boulder city limits or surrender it to the Boulder Police Department.
There are certain exceptions to all of these rules for law enforcement officers and a few others.
Owning one of the banned weapons will be considered a misdemeanor crime. Don’t worry, The Denver Post says “certification is not a registry.”
We’ve all seen cases where power in the hands of the less-than-honorable causes real harm, not just in the immediate effects of those directly concerned but in the erosion of inhibitions for those in other areas of trust. It’s clear this is a violation of the 2nd Amendment, and on the face it seems the city ordinance could be challenged in court – if anyone has the guts to try.
Make no mistake: This is gun registration, pure and simple. Once authorities know “who owns what,” what would keep them from targeting you for all sorts of things they deem “in the community’s best interest”?
Democrats don’t care, of course. The only thing they’re after is power, and it seems we’re handing it to them little by little.
