The call to “Resist!” seems to have become a liberal battle cry these days. But what most people don’t realize, and what the mainstream media avoids telling the public is that “resist” is exactly what firearms owners have been doing for literally decades in the face of unconstitutional gun laws. The level of civil disobedience to arbitrary firearms regulation has been truly staggering – and not just in the United States.
Here is a review some of the most recent examples:
Vermont
The recent abysmal failure of the state of Vermont’s Bump Stock Amnesty is a perfect illustration of the recalcitrance of the general U.S. population when it comes to gun control.
In case you missed the news on this particular law, Vermont had an amnesty in place with an October first deadline which allowed owners of bump stocks to surrender them (uncompensated, of course) to the state police. After the deadline, the penalty for being found in possession of a bump stock became a thousand-dollar fine and up to a year in jail.
With that looming penalty, how many bump stocks were surrendered by Vermont citizens during the amnesty period? TWO. No really – two. Not two hundred. Just two.
Yes, a whole two evil bumps stocks were removed from the mean streets of the Green Mountain State. I’ll bet residents feel safer already.
New York
Speaking of “safer”, the New York State SAFE ACT – the middle-of-the-night rape of New Yorkers’ gun rights in 2013, requiring the registration of all “assault weapons” in the state – resulted in a massive 4% compliance rate. The size of the giant middle finger that New York gun owners gave to their state government was so embarrassing that it required a two-year court battle to force the state to release the actual numbers under a FOIA suit.
Connecticut
New York’s neighbor to the north, Connecticut, fared only slightly better with their own gun registration plan, netting a pitiful 15% compliance rate among the state’s “assault weapon” owners.
California
And then there is California. The Golden State managed a whole 3% compliance with their latest assault weapons registration plan involving “bullet button assault weapons.” Apparently even Californians don’t like their own state government.
Despite what the media and gun-grabbing liberals would have us believe, Americans aren’t the only ones resistant to gun registration and confiscation schemes, either. Resistance in other countries is also quite high.
Australia
Remember the Australian model of gun control that Hillary and President Obama admired so much? What they didn’t tell you is that Australia’s “buyback”/confiscation achieved only an estimated 20% compliance rate. Hundreds of thousands of firearms owners in Australia did not cooperate. As a result, in the “be careful what you wish for” department, there is now a raging black market in firearms in that country.
Canada
Canada instituted a long gun registration scheme back in 1995. Not only did retrospective studies fail to demonstrate a positive effect on homicide rates, those famously “nice Canadians” largely failed to register their long guns until the shockingly expensive scheme (over $1 billion) collapsed under it’s own weight and was scrapped in 2012. If those notably polite and law-abiding Canadians refused to comply, why would anyone expect that Americans would react any differently?
With all of this evidence that gun control schemes not only don’t work, but that civilian populations are uncooperative and even contemptuous of such laws, WHY do liberal gun grabbers continue to push such an agenda?
They apparently fail to remember the adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. What that adage says about them is not particularly complimentary.
If nothing else, this data is heartening for gun owners. Our brothers and sisters in arms are not lying down in the face of arbitrary and unconstitutional gun legislation. They are fighting in the courts, and fighting in the only other peaceful ways available to them – by exercising their right to vote, and by refusing to comply.
’Dr. LateBloomer’ is the pen name of a female general pediatrician (MD, MPH, FAAP) who enjoys competitive shooting sports, including IDPA, USPSA and 3-Gun. Evil semi-automatic firearms are her favorites.
This article originally appeared at drgo.us and is reprinted here with permission.
