The gigantic problem is we've got 82 years of Constitutional violation and lots people who think it's just spiffy. Then there's people who can't see the violation for the same reasons fish cannot perceive the water.
To most people the NFA simply is. To those people a complete and sudden removal of such restrictions is a frighteningly fast change.
Although the correct and constitutional answer is to strike the NFA, to actually get rid of it we have to resort to pragmatism and do the doable. Piecemeal dismantlement.
82 years seems like a long time, but most people are seeing the law for what it is. We're also seeing the same voices, over and over, from law enforcement about how our demands for more liberty make their jobs more difficult. Liberalizing conceal carry, campus carry, open carry, silencers, short barreled long arms... etc. I will say it plainly, Officer, we do not care if increasing our liberty makes your job more difficult. Frankly, a lot of us are sick of you making demands with regards to the laws, feeling that law enforcement should be apolitical and banned from lobbying and advocating.
But in what way does all this increasing of liberty make your job harder, Mr LEO?
If SBR's are no different than any other gun, you don't need to check to see if I have a tax stamp.
If suppressors are no different than any other gun accessory, you don't need to check to see if I have a tax stamp. This is the NFA item that causes the most opposition from cops. Cops seem to hate suppressors. It's one of the few gun things where the rank and file appear to actually agree with their professional representation (machine guns being the other).
If machine guns are no different than any other gun, you don't need to check to see if I have a tax stamp.
If open carry is legal, you don't need to arrest everyone with a gun you see. Heck, at one time conceal carry was the socially unacceptable way to do it on the basis that, "someone who'd hide that they are armed is obviously up to something."
Making conceal carry legal on campus? How will you know? How does not knowing change your workload? Or are you actually going to complain that you have to investigate a shooting on campus? Don't you have to do that now, even with carry being banned?
Despite the cries from the media and police professional organizations and unions; never has making it easier for more people to own and carry a firearm resulted in the dire consequences predicted.
Not a single proposal for opening up the MG registry or removing SBR's or suppressors from the registry has proposed to make misuse of these items legal. Murder will still be illegal, assault with a deadly weapon will still be illegal, poaching will still be illegal.
Couldn't agree more.
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