You may have heard calls for mandatory reporting of stolen firearms. While reporting stolen firearms sounds reasonable, making legislation to require reporting and adding penalties for failing to do so are unnecessary burdens to law-abiding gun owners. Let’s explore why requiring gun owners to report stolen guns is a waste of legal resources and doesn’t provide any additional benefits to public safety.
We Have Enough Gun Restrictions
It can be argued that requiring gun owners to report stolen guns is part of the solution to gun violence. However, we already have many gun laws regulating the purchase, usage and transportation of firearms. These laws set standards for who can buy firearms, where firearms can be used and when they can be used, among other things. These restrictions make any further legislation unnecessary, redundant and a waste of legal resources.
Stolen Guns Aren’t a Large Problem
It’s a well-known fact that most firearms used in crimes are not stolen but illegally purchased. In fact, a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that only about 10 to 15 percent of all firearms used in crime were reported stolen. This doesn’t mean stolen guns are not dangerous or illegal; it just suggests focusing on stolen guns is not the most effective way to prevent gun violence. Instead, we should focus on enforcing existing gun laws and finding ways to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
Lack of Enforcement and Compliance
Requiring gun owners to report stolen firearms won’t work if the policy is not enforced and complied with effectively. Those who don’t report stolen guns now aren’t going to report stolen guns just because a law exists. Therefore, this policy would become another unnecessary law on the books that is not enforced on those who don’t wish to comply but is a burden to already responsible gun owners.
Responsible Gun Owners Are Already Reporting Stolen Guns
Many firearms owners already keep a record of all of their guns and report when one is stolen. That’s how we know how many guns are stolen each year. This policy would make no distinction between responsible gun owners who follow all the firearms safety rules and those who don’t. It would simply burden the responsible gun owners by introducing a time limit. This requirement would cost law-abiding gun owners time, money and energy without providing any additional safety gains. It’s essential to distinguish between responsible gun owners and criminals who misuse firearms.
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Transcript
People who push useless gun laws are really just wasting our time. In this video, I’m going to react to a question from a subscriber that says, “Are we any safer in society if stolen guns must be reported by law?”
What I’m on about today is a letter to the editor here, Vivian somebody. I don’t know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I thought they were at least a little bit on the good gun side of things. But demanding that a new law be created that any gun that is stolen or lost must be reported to the police. And they bring this out with facts that last year in Pennsylvania, 43,000 guns were lost or stolen.
Stop a minute.
Why is she complaining that guns need to be reported if they’re stolen when we know exactly how many are? They already are being reported. We don’t need another gun law that says you have to do something, specifically in this case. She wants a law that says you have to report your missing or stolen gun within X amount of time. I think it’s 48 hours. But she says we need this law because 43,000 guns were stolen last year.
That means people are already reporting them. You know who doesn’t report a stolen gun? A criminal who doesn’t want the cops to know that he had a gun. That’s who doesn’t report a stolen gun. Responsibly armed Americans who have their guns stolen report them, and they report them immediately.
In fact, I have a spreadsheet listing all of my guns by make, model and serial number. The number of those guns is none of your business. But if any one turns up missing, I can turn that information over to the police immediately so that somewhere along the line, if they come across a stolen gun, they can check that serial number against their list of stolen guns and maybe get my gun back to me.
Creating a gun law that says we must, upon pain of some penalty, report our stolen firearms is not going to make anybody safer. It’s wasting our time. Vivian, spend your time getting educated and get some safety training. That will make people safer. If she went to a hunter education or a firearm safety class instead of sitting here writing this drivel, it would be much better for us.
Understand that firearm safety is what we learn and what we do. It is not what we are legislated to do about lost or missing guns. That’s wasting our time. It’s tying up the legislative process with stuff that’s not going to help. Understand that. Responsible people already report their guns when they’re stolen. The only people not reporting guns when they’re stolen are criminals who don’t want cops to show up and investigate. That’s it. So let’s quit wasting our time.
Let me know what you think. Comment down below and tell us what you think about foolish gun laws. Thanks for watching all the way to the end of this video. I’m Kevin Michalowski, director of content for the U.S. Concealed Carry Association. I’m starting to calm down a little bit now.
