Hawkins: Universal Background Checks Unenforceable Without Gun Registry

While universal background checks are pushed as a response to the El Paso and Dayton shooting attacks, it should be remembered that such checks are unenforceable without a gun registry.

In other words, once such checks are in place, it is only a matter of time before lawmakers — in one party or the other — suggest a loose registration scheme. They will most likely do this in the days after the first mass public attack that occurs once universal background checks are the law of the land.

Think about it — universal background checks presume that the government knows about every gun sale, everywhere, at every time. That is the very meaning of the “universal” system — that all sales are covered by one background check.

The problem is that the government does not know where the vast majority of guns are at this very moment. Thus, as mass public attacks and/or high-profile shootings continue, they will claim we need a registry so the government knows where every gun is and can, therefore, know if any gun is changing hands without a background check.

We saw this scenario play out in California where universal background checks were adopted in the early 1990s. That state now has firearm registration requirements and a confiscation law as well. Moreover, California has a ten-day waiting period on gun purchases, a requirement that would-be gun buyers first get a gun safety certificate from the state, a one-handgun-a-month purchase limit, a minimum firearm purchase age of 21 years, a ban on campus carry, gun controls on ammunition sales, and more.

The lesson: It is all downhill once gun controllers secured universal background checks.

Another important point is that universal background checks will not stop mass public attacks. After all, Democrats pushed such checks in the wake of the Orlando Pulse shooting, but that shooter passed a background check for his guns. Gun controllers made the same push after the Las Vegas shooting, but that shooter passed a check for all his firearms as well. And the same goes for the Aurora movie theater attacker, the Parkland high school attacker, the Virginia Beach shooter, the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter, and on and on.

So universal background checks may sound emotionally satisfying, but they will not stop attacks. However, they will lead to more gun control and lots of it.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.