Not Working Out

New Zealanders aren’t turning them in. When Australia did the same thing, estimates of compliance fell way short of expectations. I can tell you from first hand anecdotal experience that non-compliance among New Jersey residents is also very real thing. Irish Democracy in action.

16 Responses to “Not Working Out”

  1. beatbox says:

    I gotta say, I don’t get the non-compliance thing. Yes, confiscation is a terrible thing, but unless you seriously think you are going to be taking up arms in the near future, I wouldn’t risk going to jail over it. I mean, would you even be able to shoot it?

    • Wade says:

      Doesn’t sound like you’re willing to risk much of anything for your rights. With that attitude, we’ve already lost.

    • 6.5-06 says:

      Some of the greatest changes in history have begun with a people deciding collectively – and yet individually – that there is some shit they would not eat. Silent non-compliance is the first level of civil disobedience, before taking it to the streets in a confrontational way. It is an important step in mental commitment to a cause.

      The question “would you even be able to shoot it?” smacks of regarding our gun rights as being only about toys, not about principles or what we really believe. It is similar to the Fudds or trapshooters who are willing to give away other people’s ARs and AKs if you assure them they’ll still be allowed to play with their Binnellis.

      Sebastian’s reference to “Irish democracy” is a good one. The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland were initiated by old men using something like five handguns (old Webleys) and an Enfield rifle that had been concealed in attics and under council house floorboards for over forty years, without being fired. They accomplished what they needed to to at the moment.

    • Jim says:

      Nothing risked, nothing gained. Real men don’t give up the tools of liberty, ever.

    • Scott says:

      This centrist, generally democratic voter (though we will see what crap I have to choose from this time), ain’t turning anything in. Whether I can shoot it or not, I will still have them for when I need them, and I am fairly certain that, that moment is coming in some form in my lifetime.

  2. Ian Argent says:

    Unless they can reverse the law, it’s just going to mean companies will be postponed to the next generation.

  3. Lex Luthier says:

    If I recall correctly, the whole ” Good Friday” agreement in Northern Ireland
    hinged on the disposition of about 1200
    contraband Armalite (AR-18) rifles. It took nearly 20 years for the Govt. to collect most of them. Might still be a few hundred out there in the wild.

    And there are many stories about folks in the Baltic States “oiling their gardens” during the whole Soviet occupation.

    The compliance rate for the 1990-2019 California Roberti-Roos assault weapon ban/ registration scheme is at less than 10%, I’m told.

    Lots of examples out there.

  4. mike w says:

    “Would you even be able to shoot it?” Sure, that’s a valid concern, but what really pisses me off is the arrogance of politicians who think they have any authority whatsoever to tell me “you can’t own that magazine, pistol, rifle, lower receiver” If it’s my personal property and I obtained it legally then they can go screw off

    What’s mine is mine, it doesn’t belong to them. That alone I think is a huge part of the reason for massive non-compliance.

    I mean, if the legislature in my state suddenly wrote a law that said “anyone who owns a black labrador retriever must turn the dog over to the state for destruction” and claimed it was “reasonable” because some black labs had bitten kids, I bet you’d see a hell of a lot of non-compliance.

    I can think of a whole host of laws I’d violate if they were passed. If the Dems suddenly went back to their roots and brought back separate but equal, miscegenation laws, etc. and ignored supreme court rulings. I’d quite happily stand with black folks in violation of the law, because it’s the right thing to do.

    • Andy B. says:

      My casual and not-supported-by-studies observation is that people just do not relinquish guns readily.

      I’ll put on my Old Guy’s hat again to say that 50 – 60 years ago, I spent a lot of time picking scrap and curios on private dumps (before they were “landfills” and when you could still shoot rats on them) and the one thing I never found thrown away was a gun, even a gun wrecked beyond repair. The most gun-related things I ever found were, some antique shotgun handloading tools, and a paper sack with a couple hundred blackpowder .32 RF cartridges in it.

  5. Zundfolge says:

    Over the years I’ve met a handful of Kiwis and they were all very compliant, rule following, conformist type people … not prone to outbursts of “FU, I know my rights!” (much like Canadians).

    If THESE people are not complying how on earth do gun grabbers expect to get a bunch of hard headed Texans and Wyomingites and other “red blooded” give-me-liberty-or-give-me-death type Americans with Molon Labe on t-shirts and stickers everywhere, to comply with their gun control schemes here?

    • Joe says:

      If the Democrats flip the Virginia State Legislature to their side, that situation could get really ugly. Illinois Gunowners raised Hell and Nastiness over their Democrat-Controlled State Government trying to make the FOID Card System impossible to follow by adding new restrictions that would bankrupt the average gunowner. That Bill died in an IL State House Committee.

  6. 6.5-06 says:

    “I’ve met a handful of Kiwis and they were all very compliant, rule following, conformist type people”

    I suspect that is because they are mostly Anglo-Saxons or descended from Irish who were willing to take the king’s shilling in one way or another. There is a reason why the UK is the last full-blown monarchy in the First World.

    • Joe says:

      Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are Monarchies as well. Forget that “Social Democracy” crap. The only Nordic Country that is actually close to being a Republic is Finland, but they too, are lurching towards Statism.

      Speaking of Statism, European Countries, save for Switzerland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and maybe Poland, are collectivist societies through and through.

      ‘Social Democracy’ is just people within a society being given the privilege of voting at the arbitration of The State to vote for some form of Cradle-To-Grave Entitlement Package.

      The concepts of Classical Liberalism, Federalism, Constitutional Republicanism, (Real) Democratic Republicanism, and Direct Representative Democratic Republicanism are either dead, dying off, or never existed to begin with in European Nation-States.

      • 6.5-06 says:

        Technically you’re right, but I said “full blown monarchy.” I know that’s nitpicking semantics, but Norway, Sweden and Denmark have monarchs that are largely ceremonial and traditional, without any political power. While the British monarch these days defers to the Prime Minister and Parliament on most things, that deference is by convention in many cases, and not by law. We in the U.S. have seen how readily convention can go out the window.

        FWIW, most Americans couldn’t tell you the names of the monarchs of the Scandinavian countries, while we get almost daily infomercials/soap operas on the doings of the British royals. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Scandinavian royal on the cover of a supermarket tabloid.

        • Joe says:

          I’m aware of how the Scandinavian Monarchs are ‘mostly ceremonial’, but they shape the structures of the Federal Judiciaries in those countries. That’s a lot of power.

          • 6.5-06 says:

            “they shape the structures of the Federal Judiciaries in those countries.”

            The three countries differ slightly and I’d have to review which were which, but to generalize the nominees come from elsewhere (for example, Parliament, Prime Minister) and their nomination is only “formalized” by being passed through a ceremonial monarch who puts the names forth.

            I’m not sure of the legal status of that in Scandinavia, for example, whether a veto by the monarch in the form of a refusal to put forth one of the names delivered would carry anything more than political or moral “authority”. But I’m sure that in the UK the monarch’s acceptance of nominees is by convention and not by law.

            I believe that is why the British had more concerns about a fascist-sympathizing Edward VIII in 1936, than simply that his beliefs seemed very bad form. He would have had the clout to do something about them.

            In a way we are both speculating about a great unknown, that is, scenarios that would define a “constitutional crisis” in the respective countries.