Connecticut Pols Blame Underwhelming Gun Registration Figures on Postal Glitches, Propose Amnesty

Even before the Connecticut deadline passed for
registering semi-automatic so-called “assault weapons” and
high-capacity magazines that can hold more than ten rounds, it was

pretty obvious that noncompliance would be high. That’s no
shocker, since
noncompliance with gun registration laws and other restrictions
tends to be very high, in the U.S. and abroad. But if you
needed any further confirmation that state officials are a little
disapponted with the turnout, try this on for size: Blaming postal
snafus,
Governor Malloy and
state lawmakers are already calling for an amnesty for
scofflaws and a do-over on the effort to register scary-looking
firearms and their magazines.

According to counts conducted at the close of registration
period with the end of 2013, Connecticut gun owners
registered 50,016 “assault weapons” and 38,290 high-capacity
magazines. Swell. But how does that compare to the number that
were supposed to be registered under the law?

As it turns out, the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research
looked
into just that issue in 2011. The numbers they came up with
were guesstimates, at best, but those guesstimates … ummm …
somewhat overshadow the number of registrations. Drawing on figures
from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association
for the firearms industry, the OLR says that the number of
high-capacity magazines “could be in the tens of millions” with
“over 2.4 million large capacity magazines in Connecticut that
originated at the retail level.”

Those magazines are a mix of handgun and rifle accessories, and
largely extrapolated from relatively firm gun numbers based on
National Instant Criminal Background Check System
records. In terms of rifles that use high-capacity
magazines—the sort of long guns likely to be classified as “assault
weapons”—the OLR came up with 372,000.

That’s millions of magazines, against 38,000 registrations, and
almost 400,000 rifles, with 50,000 bits of paperwork filed. Hence,
calls for an amnesty and extended registration period. The U.S.
Postal Service must have really dropped the ball. Or,
maybe, people are just tired of control-freak politiicans who

build on and abuse every intrusive policy they impose.

Amnesty. Yeah, good luck with that.