Monday, May 08, 2017

Possible Progress On Michigan's Firearm Civil Rights

In the latest move to reform firearms rights in Michigan, Rep Lee Chatfield has introduced a bill to do away with Michigan's 90-year-old handgun registration scheme.

The Detroit News: Bill would cancel Mich.’s pistol registration mandate

Most states in the USA unsurprisingly do not register their citizen's handguns, and the entire scheme in Michigan is both costly in terms of citizen and police time and resources and inefficient, and its current iteration is not exactly foolproof.

I don't know of any cases offhand where pistol registration made a decisive difference in a criminal case. I only know of one civil case where it was helpful but not decisive in that case but made a few things go a little easier due to the registration that would have been picked up at the 4473 level and it was admitted to who actually owned just about simultaneously with the time they ran the registration check.

Overall, Michigan's handgun registration is a relic of a rather racist past that has done little to fight crime and far more to waste police time.

This bill is another small step in the right direction, assuming it passes.

Hopefully along with this the Republicans will introduce a bill getting rid of the no-carry zones again, this time leave schools out of the bill as we know Snyder would use schools as an excuse to veto it, get the others removed and then come back and work on schools later. Incrementalism can work to restore rights lost incrementally.

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