Round Up (Tens of Thousands of) Gun Registration Scofflaws, Rants Hartford Courant Editorial Board

From J.D. Tuccille at Reason:

A bit of miltary wisdom has it that you should never give an order you know won't be obeyed. Issuing such an order accomplishes nothing except to undermine your authority and expose the extent to which, no matter what enforcement mechanisms are in place, you rely upon voluntary compliance. But now that Connecticut's resident class of politically employed cretins has awoken to the fact that, in their state, like everywhere else, people overwhelmingly disobey orders to register their weapons, they're acting like this is a shocking revelation. They're also promising to make those who tried to comply, but missed the deadline regret the effort (proving the point of the openly defiant). And the politicians' enablers in the press are screaming for the prosecution of "scores of thousands" of state residents who, quite predictably, flipped the bird at the government.

Three years ago, the Connecticut legislature estimated there were 372,000 rifles in the state of the sort that might be classified as "assault weapons," and two million plus high-capacity magazines. Many more have been sold in the gun-buying boom since then. But by the close of registration at the end of 2013, state officials received around 50,000 applications for "assault weapon" registrations, and 38,000 applications for magazines.

Some people actually tried to comply with the registration law, but missed the deadline. The state's official position is that it will accept applications notarized on or before January 1, 2014 and postmarked by January 4. But, says Dora Schriro, Commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, in a letter to lawmakers, anybody sufficiently law-abiding but foolish enough to miss that slightly extended grace period will have to surrender or otherwise get rid of their guns. ...........................

You know who won't have to surrender their weapons? People who quietly told the state to fuck off.

This successful example of mass defiance horrifies the editorial board of the Hartford Courant, which shudders at the sight of the masses not obeying an order that, history, tells us, never had a shot at wide compliance.

I love the people who say you could never deport all the illegals, but who think you could lock up all the gun owners. (H/T Instapundit)