Just a thought here, but I'm curious why I haven't heard anyone making the following argument:
In the Heller case, SCOTUS recognized the right to gun ownership as a fundamental right. It is on par with things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to vote, right to privacy, and Equal Protection which includes things like the right to marry a person of any race and the right to procreate outside of marriage. Arguably the right to keep arms is an even stronger right than court-created rights such as abortion, and in some states gay marriage.
Do states require registration or a permitting system for citizens who exercise these rights? Can you image the uproar if citizens were required by a state to obtain a permit before practicing a religion? (True, one must register to vote, but I think that is a procedural necessity, without which the voting process could not happen; people also must obtain marriage licenses, and I'm sure there is some kind of state paperwork for abortions.)
But now imagine that not only must you obtain a permit to practice your religion, but that information could be publicly accessed and placed in a searchable database by an irresponsible news organization (I understand the HT does not make addresses known - but they could because they have legal access to that information). What about a searchable database showing where legally married gay couples live? Or even a searchable database showing where interracial couples live? Can you imagine the uproar that would occur?
The point is that gun rights are on par with every other constitutionally prescribed fundamental right, and should be treated the same. Arguably, the idea of even requiring a permit is unconstitutional. Yet the idea of making right-exercising citizen’s information publicly available is not only novel compared to all other fundamental rights, but it casts gun-owners as problem citizens who should be tracked and identified by non-gun-owning neighbors.
I find it offensive, and I wish the best to those of you working with our state legislature to remedy this problem.
With all due respect, I don't want your best wishes. I want your help making it happen. Write a letter to YOUR legislators.
Best wishes don't make anything happen. They're just like most of the liberal legislation aimed at "gun control"; they're feel-good things that look good on the surface and do not one bloody thing to improve the situation.
Your thoughts are mostly on point. Voting in American elections is NOT a right, however, it is a privilege of American citizenship. The usual "gun control" argument is that an interracial couple, a gay couple, or a fill-in-religion-here person is not by virtue of membership in that group going to kill someone, where a gun (or a gun owner) might. (You never know when one of us might snap, you see.)
The obvious problem with this is that the numbers who DO do that are miniscule and we don't need "watched" any more than do people who drink who might drive after doing so, and who are a much greater threat by any measure.
As Techres has pointed out, when you write your letters, focus on privacy concerns and the rights of victims of crimes to not be "outed" to the criminals who victimized them; the right of those and other intended victims to prevent themselves from being victims in the first place.
To focus on gun rights is to establish a disconnect between those who do and those who don't own guns. Anyone can be an intended victim, however, and we ALL have a right to our privacy.
I look forward to your message telling us that you wrote to your legislators.
Thanks for your help.
Blessings,
Bill