Let's suppose...

[InspectorCallahan]

Let's suppose that somewhere down the road, the anti-gun people finally get their way. The Supreme Court decides we no longer have the right to own guns of any kind. You are now required to relinquish your weapons to the police, and ownership beyond a certain date is a felony punishable by a minimum prison term of 10 years. You have invested hundreds or thousands or more in your guns.

What do you do?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. The NRA magazine has gotten me concerned about the potential of an Obama re-election and what that could mean for gun rights, and I imagined a scenario where this happened. I can't imagine Congress and the American people would ever stand for it, frankly. But I still wonder what the majority of gun owners would do.

I'm not quite sure what I'd do. I might comply and give them some of my guns. I might not give them any of them. I've got to think that the police would likely come knocking on my door with a search warrant at some point. They have records of multiple gun purchases - yet I have not relinquished a single firearm. Who's gonna believe I sold them all?

Do you ever think about this scenario, and what you would do if it came to be? Now that you have, what would you do?

Just curious what other gun owners would do. Farfetched, maybe. But... maybe not. Thanks for your replies.

Inspector Callahan

[mk4]

Guns? What guns?
Darn that tragic boating accident...

[Tweaker]

I DON'T tell you what I would do here on this open web forum. It may or may not violate the COC as well as being plain stupid for me to share.

[Diomed]

Most hand them in. Many quietly hide them away, and will have them collected piecemeal over the years as the government goes down the list or they otherwise come to the attention of the authorities. A few vocally object and are made examples of.

Not terribly hard to predict, since that's more or less how it's gone down elsewhere.

[allingeneral]

Most hand them in. Many quietly hide them away, and will have them collected piecemeal over the years as the government goes down the list or they otherwise come to the attention of the authorities. A few vocally object and are made examples of.

Not terribly hard to predict, since that's more or less how it's gone down elsewhere.

that's pretty insightful... scary, but insightful.

[fuze]

I sold them all.

[Reverenddel]

"Guns? What guns?
Darn that tragic boating accident..."

THIS!

[mamabearCali]

I think that is less likely anytime soon, and more difficult to accomplish in this big country than in places like Australia, England, etc etc. But yeah I worry about this too. Can't tell you what I would do. Not that I have not thought about it, but just not telling on a public forum.

[scott9050]

I have heard that a plan to force states to repeal CCW laws is in the works for term 2.

[Alex]

Be good citizens and hand them over. Ammo first.

[BW1911]

A fellow who manages a gun shop near me is an ex-pat brit, and was a leo in England when the total ban went into effect. His comments were that England had a national registration system for many years before the final ban, and that the locations and control of all handguns was more tightly regulated, too. He said that England probably had a firmer grasp on where/who, etc. when the ban went into effect, so most just walked in and handed them over. Some, they had to send registered mail to, then they showed up. A very few, they went to visit. Don't recall if he mentioned the time frames involved.

His other comment was really interesting. Apparently there was some type of paintball gun or something like that which criminals bought up and/or began importing and converting to single shot guns that shot a ball bearing. He said they started seeing a fair amount of those types of gunshot wounds after the ban, and his impression was that even the hardcore criminals were not able to retain too many "real" firearms.

I don't know if there is effectively a national gun registry here or not. Clearly, the feds own any sales records from FFLS who go out of business and have likely scanned them, and they also have data (that is SUPPOSED to expire) when they perform background checks. The fly in the ointment here in the US is the citizens' ability to conduct private sales and the sheer volume of firearms in question.

Interesting thread, as always

[SilentServiceVet]

The day honest Americans have to hide their ownership of guns, as guaranteed by Second Amendment, will be the day we have more to worry about than just the Government trying to take guns away. Once the flood gates open, we're in for a heap of trouble.

So I'll just say I like the "boating accident" answer and leave it at that.

[mk4]

So I'll just say I like the "boating accident" answer and leave it at that.

salt water and barnacles...

[Wallace]

I think it would be a little more difficult than England.
First, it has to get enforced. Enforcement would have to come from the Executive branch, either authorizing the DOJ or the military or both to confiscate the weapons. If the POTUS ever issued an order giving either the DOJ or the military or some other department authorization to enforce a SCOTUS ruling that stated all guns must be turned over to the Federal Government I really believe that the Congress would act to impeach the POTUS.

If that did not happen in a very short time then it would be up to the State Houses to act.

Then even if the States did not act then we would have to rely on some of these people:

Manpower available for military service:
males age 16-49: 73,270,043
females age 16-49: 71,941,969 (2010 est.)

Manpower fit for military service
males age 16-49: 60,620,143
females age 16-49: 59,401,941 (2010 est.)

The only real option for disarming the citizens would have to be through a Constitutional Amendment.

But IF, I guess I would make a trip to the State Capital and meet up with every one else here at this forum and all the other NRA members ect ect and demand to see the Governor

[papasan]

i don't understand all this fervor over BO enforcing stricter gun control. the only time i ever hear it brought up in on forums like this where people have an obviously vested (biased) interest. haven't heard anything at all about gun control in the news, around the water cooler, etc recently. even with the recent FL fiasco i haven't heard of stricter laws being offered as a solution (oddly). hasn't it been pretty much a non-issue the past 3y?

http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... 92,00.html

[WRW]

Papasan, look under the radar.

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[Diomed]

I agree that a full scale ban on everything (or on major categories of firearms, like handguns or semiautos) is quite unlikely, unless the government goes full retard in response to some extreme stimulus like a major economic collapse or nationwide rioting. Even then the fabled house-to-house confiscations are pretty unlikely, it'd be more like checkpoints and shakedowns when out and about. Lots of less progressive areas would hardly notice it. As Wallace alludes to, there's a manpower issue. Lots of guns, not so many goons.

On the other hand, people tend to be compliant. The man on teevee tells them to do something, they do it. There would be plenty of passive noncompliance, like there was in Canada with their long gun registry, but - if the ban stays and becomes a permanent fact of life - eventually the net will catch the fish. Children would be indoctrinated to rat out their parents, bribes would be offered for friends and neighbors to rat out gunowners, various other intrusions to look for the outlawed guns would become the norm, and it simply wouldn't be worth the effort to keep a few old guns around (that you can't even shoot, since that would attract unwanted attention, or use for self-defense, since you'd just wind up in prison for the rest of your life or with a needle in your arm anyway) when the consequences of getting caught are ruinious.

While the hardcore house-to-house confiscations (with summary executions - some of them have openly called for that) may be the dream of the nutbags in the banner camp, the realists know the scenario I described above is much more plausible. They don't mind playing a long game, since they have a decent chance of winning in the end.

[BW1911]

I agree with pretty much everything said in your post, Diomed, with one small exception.

Even then the fabled house-to-house confiscations are pretty unlikely, it'd be more like checkpoints and shakedowns when out and about.

If there were a general ban (hypothetically) the first few folks arrested for possession at some checkpoint (similar to airline terminals, now) would be publicized heavily, most folks would generally stop carrying (and start burying?!?), and the "easy" seizures would dry up pretty fast. Here, we would reach a fork in the road... Either the MSM and government would declare victory (obviously as evidenced by the reduced rate of seizures) and quit looking, OR they would realize that public searches were no longer effective and they might try to go door to door in SOME localities (think of New Orleans, after Katrina) or just in SOME cases (have you bought any ammo with a credit card, lately?). Of course, the majority of communities affected by Katrina did NOT go door to door, but they weren't facing Federal pressure (cutting off funds? sending in National Guard?) for not doing so, either. Folks ARE generally compliant, and will follow even laws that would make our Founding Fathers weep, because the OP's scenario is that such laws were passed and legal, such as it were...

And here is the second fork in the road. The problem for federal law enforcement, military, etc. is which Constitution are they oath-bound to defend? The original one or the current one (i.e., the one the OP has posited that the SCOTUS has created through their hypothetical ruling)? I'd guess the answer, in the OP's scenario, is not one may of us would like, because in this scenario the lawful orders coming from above would be to seize guns (i.e., implement the policy of whatever administration is in power at the time, and comply with Federal laws). I'm certainly not a constitutional lawyer, so I don't know how the states would play against the feds in the OP's scenario, but feds operate inside every state, so there would be no automatic safe havens based on state opposition to Federal law. It is, perhaps, informative, to study how ICE is behaving towards the immigration issue in Arizona and the border states for clues on how they would interact with states in the hypothetical scenario.

[dorminWS]

I'd hope the states would intervene on behalf of their citizens in such a case. Some would; some not. I can see Virginia in that fight, for instance, but not New York, Illinois or Massachusetts.

As far as the enforcement piece goes, wouldn't it probably go pretty much like the outlawing of machine guns did? As the older generation that had legally acquired and owned them and then hid them after they became prohibited dies off and the heirs find them in the attic, they are scared to death by the contraband and get rid of it. Ever wonder how many pre-NFA Thompsons got buried in the backyard or thrown into the ocean by the panicked heirs of their original owners?

[mamabearCali]

One thing about it though, when everything is illegal, nothing is. Especially in a country this big you would likely end up where the USSR was. If something happens to you or if you have to defend yourself, you don't call the police, it becomes SSS. Not a pleasant thought.

When you have tyranny whether or not something is legal (the starvation of the ukranian people was "legal") begins to take a backseat and corruption and brute force reigns.

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