How can anyone object to that? Firearms that are currently illegal by fiat will be brought into the legal system and have the safeguards associated with that system. They will be registered and required to be transfered only to people who have a background check and are fingerprinted.
Marktwain, I object. Registration is a prelude to confiscation - always has been, always will be. The only question is how long it takes those with registration lists to demand that the weapon in question be surrendered. If you doubt that, try asking the people who registered long guns in NYC in 1966, or the suckers that registered "assault rifles" in California. Try asking those in foreign countries (Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Uganda, Cambodia, etc. ) that had to register their guns how they feel about it - if, that is, you can find any survivors of the subsequent actions of their benevolent governments.
You make the faulty assumption that the government will obey the law as rigorously as it expects us, on pain of prison, to do. If you truly believe that no future government, esp. of the Clinton-type, will use these registration lists as tools of confiscation, then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Registration is somehow considered OK for guns, but not for other Constitutionally-protected items like Bibles. You should think about that. Would you register your Bible if a law said you had to? Would you permit the government to limit the design of your Bible, the number you own, etc.? Would you apply for a permit to attend church? How would you feel about a law that limited the type or number of printing presses (or ink-jet printers, copiers, fax machines, etc) that you owned, and required that you register all of them?
You should also think about what your response would be if the government repealed (according to all of the legalities set forth in the Constitution) the 1st Amendment (that's right, the 1st) - do you think that such an act would enable it to outlaw the possession of Bibles, attendance at a house of worship, etc.? If not (and I certainly hope not), then you should consider the effect of the laws that outlaw or restrict the possession of certain firearms, much less the repeal of the 2nd Amendment that the gun-grabbers so desparately hope for at some point in the future. These existing laws are as repugnant to our way of life as a law that would ban Bibles. Registration of guns is as repugnant as registration of Bibles.
Try to think outside of the box. Don't be too caught up in thinking that if there's a law that says something, that it is somehow OK. The Nazis were masters at legally implementing the most repugnant and odious laws in the history of mankind, and their judges obediently said that it was all legal. No one, however, bothered to stand up and say that the whole idea of government legislating about certain things was impermissable (maybe, perhaps, because guns had already been confiscated from all opponents of the Nazis - how's that for a tie-in?).
As far as:
Try to think outside of the box. Don't be too caught up in thinking that if there's a law that says something, that it is somehow OK.
I think the converse of this is also apt:
"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." -- Martin Luther King
You should also think about what your response would be if the government repealed (according to all of the legalities set forth in the Constitution) the 1st Amendment (that's right, the 1st) - do you think that such an act would enable it to outlaw the possession of Bibles, attendance at a house of worship, etc.? If not (and I certainly hope not), then you should consider the effect of the laws that outlaw or restrict the possession of certain firearms, much less the repeal of the 2nd Amendment that the gun-grabbers so desparately hope for at some point in the future. These existing laws are as repugnant to our way of life as a law that would ban Bibles. Registration of guns is as repugnant as registration of Bibles.
Try to think outside of the box. Don't be too caught up in thinking that if there's a law that says something, that it is somehow OK. The Nazis were masters at legally implementing the most repugnant and odious laws in the history of mankind, and their judges obediently said that it was all legal. No one, however, bothered to stand up and say that the whole idea of government legislating about certain things was impermissable (maybe, perhaps, because guns had already been confiscated from all opponents of the Nazis - how's that for a tie-in?).
I respectfully submit that you are trapped inside the "all or nothing " box. A law such as I suggested would be a step in the right direction. By far most class three weapons are owned by people who have no idea that they are facing a federal felony for owning them. A general amnesty would also "legalize" a lot of firearms that have been made illegally over the last 35 years. We don't have to give up principles to get such a law enacted, as it is just a "common sense" approach, to use the liberals language.
If you wish to check my posts, you will find that I make the point that illegal is not immoral several times.
The anti freedom forces have used the tactic of incrementalism against us to good effect. With those constitutionaly protected weapons made illegal, they are buried, not used, no one can be trained with them without fear of going to jail as a federal felon, and juries aren't evern allowed to hear the constitutional arguments. If they come into the legal fold, they expand the number of shooters and help expose the anti freedom agenda for what it is.
The cap on class three weapons in 1986 put a limit on the number of legal owners. The thought, I am sure, was that as long as the noose of anti freedom law only gets tighter, rather than looser, it is not so important how slowly it goes. The war is more about attitudes than possession of rusty AKs. In a generation or two, the idea is that the number of people in the gun culture will have dropped to a politically unimportant number. If we reverse the gun laws toward even a little bit more freedom, we change the momentum, cause the anti freedom statists a huge amount of grief, and have some momentum for winning. We have to win the culture war. Before the internet, talk radio, and Fox news, the other side was winning because it controled the information (for the most part) that people recieved. Now the momentum is starting to turn our way because the basic culture, the facts, and the Constitution are on our side. We won't win it all at once, though. We will win it bit by bit.
Any RIGHT which is regulated, permitted, or otherwise infringed by the legal system is no longer an unalienable right (granted by God and beyond the jurisdiction of humans to repeal or regulate), but reduced to mere privelege, and, as such subject to repeal at the whim of the sitting government.
The government which governs best governs least.