As Emanuel Cellar and Thomas J Dodd said back in 1962,...
“We don’t want to take your guns away, we ONLY want to register them! Long guns will not be affected.”
Yeah, sure.
I think it was back in the '70s when there was some "Register All Guns" telethon going on and actor Robert Lansing (TV 12 O'Clock High) was overseeing the phone banks. One volunteer asked him a question about registration, and as the guy walked away, Lansing added, "Tell 'em we don't want to take their guns, just register them.". I nearly fell off the chair over the lunacy of that statement and I wish to God someone had asked him how they could "take their guns" if they didn't know who had them and where they were.