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I think this would boil down to the extent to which the government can regulate rights. For example, the government can require you get a permit to demonstrate. It cannot deny you the right to demonstrate in some manner without violating the Constitution (although they still try sometimes).

So gun registration would be regulation of a right, and possibly would pass Constitutional muster, which means it is relegated to the really bad idea with tremendous potential for abuse category - a standard which at times has been sufficient for court scrutiny.

Maybe some freepers can help on this angle.

"So gun registration would be regulation of a right, and possibly would pass Constitutional muster . . . ."

I agree with your position that, if the Second Amendment confers an individual right, then that right can be subject to limitations in the same fashion that First or Fourth Amendment rights can be limited. There is nothing any more talismanic about the words "...shall not be infringed" than there is with the words "Congress shall make no law...." I don't agree with you, however, that a national database of guns & gun owners would pass constitution muster. Many content-neutral laws, such a regulations of parade permits, to take your example, have been upheld by the SCOTUS as not infringing on First Amendment protections. However, even facially content-neutral laws have been struck down by the Court if they can be demonstrated to have a chilling effect on the exercise of the relevant right. I think the most apposite case relating to a gun database is NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson(I'll hunt the cite if you want me to), wherein the Court struck down Alabama's law that associations be required to turn over lists of their memberships to the government, because the very collection of such information could dissuade individuals from exercising their freedom of association. I don't see how a national database would be much different. The chilling effect on the exercise of the Second Amendment right would be just as significant, and just as unconstitutional.

The short answer is 'NO'. On a theoretical sense. Ask your editor if he would support a national penis database, wherein all potential rapists (Men) would be required to submit DNA and fingerprints - to help solve crimes, don'tcha know? Then ask this editor if he would support a national vagina database, wherein all potential rape victims would be required to provide DNA and fingerprints - to help identify the dead victims don'tcha know?

This issue is no different. Period.

On a practical sense, right now under the current state of the law, probably.

The long answer is IF, and ONLY IF, SCOTUS would take up the issue of the Second Amendment, declare it a fundamental right and that laws seeking to regulate it require strict scrutiny, a National Firearms Registry MIGHT NOT be constitutional.

Before the flames start, consider that I'm as about as extreme on this issue as anyone else - the Second Amendment is there to remind the Government what it is (the people) and keep the Government in fear of itself (the people).

IF the afore-mentioned precedent events occurred, We the People could be reasonably assured what laws would fly and what would not. Most of the current laws won't pass strict scrutiny. A ballistic fingerprint database might not either. But at least there would be a framework through which Courts could then analyze laws and government conduct. Unlike now, where the Feds in their hunt for the sniper were harrassing law-abiding purchasers here in Maryland to turn in their firearms for test fireing declaring "what, do you have something to hide?"

Right now there is no law on point and who knows what could happen. What we do know is every State where there has been a registration there has been a confiscation. NY and CA. DC. Now it is ocurring in MD - they illegally using purchase records to harrass innocent firearms owners.

Back to the penis and vagina databases - it is a terrible invasion of privacy; there is no data that says most men will rape and most women will be victims, so the affected population would be largely innocent citizens; the ACLU would scream about privacy concerns; and it would not STOP a single rape. Only after a rape was committed and/or a dead body found would there be an arrest.

The same arguments against a firearms registry apply.