by: Allison Martinez
Many suspected, and it has been rumored, but now the memo is out. Apparently, the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the United States Department of Justice had researched several avenues to greatly restrict America’s access to guns and ammunition. Confiscations and a national gun registry were on the list. Of course, they don’t use the word “confiscation.” They used the word “recovering” in the memo to describe obtaining guns from gun owners, but whether you call it recovering or confiscating, it is government taking guns from gun owners. The difference in the two words is your view of who owns the gun. The word recovering means the US DOJ believes they own the gun and are allowing you to have it. The word confiscate implies that they are taking something that does not belong to them.
While the memo was widely touted in February by the NRA, but it was not released. It is out now.
The memo shows that the administration not only looked at taking guns, it also show that they do not believe that Americans have a right to have a gun at all. It also advocates for a national gun registry and for ammunition logs.
This is very damning, it dovetails with what we have seen in happening in the guns and ammunition industry.
In discussing the memo, Bob Owen of the Bearing Guns Website stated,
The DOJ memo states the administration “believes that a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation,” according to the NRA, and thinks universal background checks “won’t work without requiring national gun registration.” Obama has yet to publicly support national registration or firearms confiscation, although the memo reveals his administration is moving in that direction.
Owens also states that NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam confirmed the DOJ memo is legitimate.
The memo, dated January 4, 2013 was written two weeks before Obama mounted his attack on the Second Amendment following the Sandy Hook massacre. It is authored by Greg Ridgeway, the acting director of the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice, Greg Ridgeway. Prior to working for the Justice Department, Ridgeway worked for the RAND corporation.
The memo addresses the different methods used and their effectiveness. It essentially advocates for a national gun registry and for various forms of weapons “recovery.”
By way of synopsis, the memo lists the following programs:
1) Gun buy backs– Ridgeway concluded most buy backs were too small to be effective and they didn’t really get the guns off the street that are used in criminal activity. Further, he found people just use the money to buy another gun.
2) Restrict Magazine Size–Ridgeway regarded this as effective ONLY if the previously owned larger magazines were “recovered” or bought back and the future manufacture and importation banned. He wrote:
In order to have an impact, large capacity magazine regulation needs to sharply curtail their availability to include restrictions on importation, manufacture, sale, and possession. An exemption for previously owned magazines would nearly eliminate any impact. The program would need to be coupled with an extensive buyback of existing large capacity magazines. With anexemption the impact of the restrictions would only be felt when the magazines degrade or when they no longer are compatible with guns in circulation. This would take decades to realize
This seems to follow in line with what the Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign got passed in Colorado.
3) Curtain the flow of Ammunition. It seems there was an interest to force logging ammunition sales and describes law enforcement’s use of ammunition logs to get leads on suspects. The memo states,
There is evidence that the program [registry of ammunition] can be used to identify prohibited purchasers and can aid in the recovery of illegal firearms.
The Obama Regime has used other methods to restrict ammunition too, such as EPA restrictions on lead. This goes beyond the scope of Ridgeway’s analysis, suggesting there may be other memos in other agencies.
4) Universal background checks can be effective if used with a universal gun registry. A Screenshot of the top of page 5 says it all.5) Gun Registry with continual checks- The policy that researchers appeared to believe as effective is a gun registry. People can become ineligible to own a gun after they acquire a gun, according to the study.The challenge to implementing this more broadly is that most states do not have a registry of firearm ownership. Currently NICS background checks are destroyed within 24 hours. Some states maintain registration of all firearms. Gun registration aims to 1) increase owner responsibility by directly connecting an owner with a gun, 2) improve law enforcement’s ability to retrieve guns from owners prohibited from possessing firearms.Gun registration also allows for the monitoring of multiple gun purchases in a short period of time.6) Assault Weapons ban with a buy back plan and no exemptions for prior purchases was another plan advocated.Since assault weapons are not a major contributor to US gun homicide and the existing stock of guns is large, an assault weapon ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence. If coupled with a gun buyback and no exemptions then it could be effective.7) Child proofing guns and other technology changes-these didn’t seem to be regarded too seriously. Ridgeway concluded that this would only create an illicit market for weaponry in which this technology would be neutralized. Copies of the memo can be accessed here.
