ATF Acting Director Brandon Campaigning for Gun Registry

An ATF spokesman who was intimately involved in the Fast and Furious cover up has been promoting a national gun registry on CBS.  On Sunday, 31 July, Deputy Director Thomas E. Brandon appeared on Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.

Brandon was the ATF official who oversaw the discipline or more accurately the lack thereof, in the Fast and Furious operation. His role has been detailed in the americanthinker.com:

According to outgoing Director Jones's sworn testimony of April 2, 2014 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Mr. Brandon was the person who determined disciplinary punishments for all of the ATF personnel involved in Fast and Furious. Brandon was "the ultimate decision maker." Director Jones confirmed that Thomas Brandon did not fire a single person for participation in Fast and Furious.

 Here is the testimony were Jones is forced to admit that no ATF personnel were fired over the Fast and Furious operation, and that it was the Deputy Director who made those decisions. The Deputy Director at that time was Thomas E. Brandon. From Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 2 April, 2014

Chairman Issa. Director, I understand. I am only asking did you influence or have an input into that call of his not being fired, his continuing to draw a paycheck and eventually retire at his high pay as an SES?

 Mr. Jones. I did not. 

Chairman Issa. You did not. Did your number two have that influence? 

 Mr. Jones. The process involves the Bureau deciding official and the ultimate decision-maker is the Deputy Director with appeal to me should the employee not be satisfied. 

Chairman Issa. But the employee was satisfied and number two made the call, is that fair to say for the public record? 

Mr. Jones. That is fair to say.

Thomas Brandon has now debuted as one of the Obama administration people pushing for more gun control.  In his appearance On CBS, he simply assumes a computerized database of all gun sales is "good".  He does not explain why. From cbsnews.com:

Yet, Brandon says, not having the database hurts. Indeed, after the San Bernardino shootings, it took 12 hours to find out who owned the guns used in the attack. He says a computer database would have helped, and adds that not having one simply doesn't make sense.

"There's a lot of things that don't make sense in this town, you know?" Brandon tells Schlesinger. "And, so, yeah, would it be efficient and effective? Absolutely. Would the taxpayers benefit with public safety? Absolutely. Are we allowed to do it? No."

Such a database amounts to a national gun registry.  But the position put forward by Brandon begs the question.  What is the point of determining where the gun came from? Why is that considered worthwhile?  It does not prevent any crime from taking place.  It is only worthwhile if you believe that you will somehow be able to stop criminals from obtaining guns by regulating legal sources.  It has not happened anywhere else in the world.

But as we have seen from numerous other countries, when you tighten controls on legal sources, it only pushes criminal supply into illegal sources.  Tighten the controls enough, and you create a underground supply of illegally made guns and ammunition, as in Brazil, Israel, the Philippines and India.  There is no evidence that this decreases crime rates.  It may make illegal guns more expensive; then again, it may make them more common.  In India, you can buy a "country made" pistol for $15- $20.

Even if we posit, for the sake of argument, that determining where the gun came from might be useful, what is the point of finding out where it came from 12 hours earlier?  The whole point of the current system was to allow tracing without creating a national registry.  Registration systems have failed, over and over again, at preventing crime.  They have one significant purpose; they make confiscation of guns, either incrementally over time, or all at once, much easier.

That is a good argument to eliminate the current tracing system.  It does not decrease crime, and it constantly serves as a temptation to be converted into a registration system.  When the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed, Lyndon Johnson wanted a national registration system.  It is what the original bill preceding the GCA 1968 legislation called for. From Lyndon Johnson's speech after the passage of GCA 1968 ucsb.edu:

Congress adopted most of our recommendations. But this bill--as big as this bill is--still falls short, because we just could not get the Congress to carry out the requests we made of them. I asked for the national registration of all guns and the licensing of those who carry those guns. For the fact of life is that there are over 160 million guns in this country--more firearms than families. If guns are to be kept out of the hands of the criminal, out of the hands of the insane, and out of the hands of the irresponsible, then we just must have licensing. If the criminal with a gun is to be tracked down quickly, then we must have registration in this country.

The whole purpose of the tracing system was a political compromise to prevent registration.  As tracing does not aid in crime prevention, why keep it?

The basic assumption of a registration or a tracing system is that more guns are bad.  But that is an assumption has been shown to be false.  It makes more sense to devote resources to keep guns out of the hands of specific individuals who have been shown to be irresponsible, than to attempt to track all gun sales and all gun possession, 99.9 percent of which is harmless or beneficial.

If someone cannot be trusted with a weapon, put them in jail.  They are a tiny segment of society.

T/H to weaponsman.com 

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