DC:More Abuse of Gun Owners

Emily Miller has another excellent article on bureaucratic abuse of citizens who dare to exercise their constitutional rights.

The 1,800 or so criminals who have killed, robbed or assaulted innocent people with guns in the District of Columbia so far this year were hauled into the police station to be fingerprinted, photographed and to undergo a criminal-background check.

Now, legal gun owners who have committed no crime are getting the exact same treatment. That is neither constitutional, nor fair.

The latest gun-control scheme that starts on Jan. 1 will force every legal firearm owner in the nation’s capital to go in person to police headquarters to renew their registration certificates.

The Metropolitan Police Department filed proposed rules last week to enact this absurd law, and citizens have until Dec. 15 to comment on the regulations.
To avoid becoming a felon, anyone with a gun registered before 2011 will have to go to police headquarters to be fingerprinted, photographed, provide proof of address, pay a fee and confirm they may still legally possess the firearm. The Firearms Registration Section will then create a new registration certificate — now in the form of an ID card — for each gun.

This operation could end up making the rollout of Obamacare look smooth and easy.

The police propose scheduling everyone in three-month windows based on your birthday. The eight windows start on Jan. 1 and go through 2015. They intend to set up an online system to make an appointment. The department is trying to set up a system to accept credit cards for the $13-per-gun fee, but that has not been finalized.

George Lyon, who was a plaintiff in the original Heller case, pointed out that it will cost him $104 to re-register his eight guns. “I don’t see that they need a re-registration system at all,” the Washington lawyer told me “But if they do, this whole thing ought really to be done online, automated and without adding more fees.”

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