Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
From: [l v c] at [cbnews.cb.att.com] (Larry Cipriani)
Subject: Re: Gun Confiscation
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 01:33:51 GMT

In article <[93339 221712 LDM 102] at [psuvm.psu.edu]> [L D M 102] at [psuvm.psu.edu] (The Ramblin' Man) writes:
>My sister-in-law tells me that many people on an internal corporate
>  newsgroup are claiming that anyone who's worried about gun
>  registration leading to confiscation is being paranoid.  She asked
>  me for documentation on past cases of this.  Can anyone provide
>  "good" documentation on the Cleveland confiscation?

The following is taken from an NRA-ILA pamphlet called "The Myth of
the Saturday NIght Special":

In 1976 the Cleveland City Council enacted a ban on private ownership
of some handguns - those with barrel lengths of under three inches and
of calibers below .32-inch.

"That law was thrown out by a Municipal Judge who declared that it
iscriminated against the poor, and who called the "Saturday Night
Special" definition "an arbitrary distinction with no basis in fact
or logic."

Subsequently, Cleveland enacted a handgun registration law.  Dutifully,
Cleveland firearms owners obeyed, and among those firearms registered
were over 5,500 handguns which would have been covered under the defunct
"Saturday Night Special" law.

However, when an appeals court reversed the earlier decision and
reinstated the "Saturday Night Special" law, all of those registered
firearms were declared illegal contraband.  In fact, the police sent
notices to those who had registered their pistols and revolvers telling
them their registration cards were revoked and that they must dispose
of their illegal guns, surrender them to the police, or ultimately
they would be confiscated.

Often, during debate situations, the spectre of anti-gun bureaucrats
using registration lists to facilitate confiscation is dismissed by
gun control advocates as "the daydreams of hopeless paranoides."
The situation in Cleveland is no dream.  It happened.  It could happen
again.
-- 
Larry Cipriani -- [l v cipriani] at [att.com] or attmail!lcipriani