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Does this ever work? If the gun actually was banned as a result, wouldn't you also need to turn in your already purchased ones?
I mean no one knows exactly what the ban would look like prior to it actually occurring. But the federal assault weapons ban of the Clinton era did not involve any confiscation or turn in process, if you owned one purchased a week before the bill passed it was yours. Ditto the NFA in the 1920s, though I believe it did impose the tax stamp process on machine guns.
I was under the impression that this doesn't happen nowadays. I don't think, for instance, that when the bump stock ban was imposed you were allowed to keep your existing bump stocks.
I mean sure it's possible, but the most recent identical ban at the federal level did not feature confiscation. And confiscation would be pretty impractical on balance. There's a chance of confiscation, and a chance of non-confiscation, but considering scenarios, for me the outcomes look something like:
No Ban: I bought a gun I always kind of wanted or intended to buy anyway, maybe for a little more money or with a little less research than I otherwise would have. Not that bad an outcome.
Ban, no confiscation: I have a gun that I wanted and intended to purchase, which I otherwise would not be able to buy.
Ban, confiscation: I lose the gun.
Ban, TSHTF and TEOTWAWKI as a result of trying to confiscate 10,000,000 firearms from unfriendly owners: Boy, sure glad I have this thing today.
No Purchase: I have a few hundred dollars I wouldn't otherwise have.
Leaving aside internet tough-guy memes about boating accidents.
Obviously you can put your own values and probabilities in here and get a lot of outcomes, but the whole thing was pretty marginal to me. I didn't move heaven and earth to do it, I drove up the road a couple miles and I spent a day's earnings.
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It did in 33 (and 86) and in 94, that's why it happens so much today. Everything already out there stayed out there and started to appreciate.
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Not if they were lost or sold in the meantime...
I think about this sometimes. Whatever else can be said, a large store of dark rifles remaining in the wild would rapidly lose any meaningful import as the people who know how to use them cycle out and the next generation cannot be trained.
I feel like if this statement were completely true, Iraq and Afghanistan would have gone a lot differently.
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Black rifles are primarily useful as a political rallying and coordination point, not for their (considerable) efficacy in a rebellion against the government. Their absence does not significantly impede such a rebellion.
Which is why gun rights will continue to get slowly eroded by salami-slicing instead of mass confiscation, so as to ensure this coordination point — AFAICT the only one the Red Tribe has — never gets tripped. They can oppress us into extinction all they want, just by avoiding that one big, shiny tripwire.
[Citation needed]
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