Pro-gun advocates burn almost 1000 gun registration forms in protest of being asked to be responsible gun owners.

Photo courtesy of Facebook

Courtesy of Post Star:

Nearly a thousand gun registration forms were turned into ashes Sunday. 

The forms are used for people to register with New York State Police firearms that meet the state’s definition of military-style assault weapons. The deadline is April 15. Gun rights advocates gathered at the Saratoga-Wilton Elks Lodge 161 to burn the papers in a symbolic protest. 

E.J. Stokes, leader of the Warren County chapter of New York Revolution, said he was participating because he believes in the U.S. Constitution. 

“Once the Second (Amendment) falls, the rest will go with it. It’s an unconstitutional law, done in the middle of the night with no input from the public,” he said. 

The event was organized by the NY2A Grassroots Coalition. NY2A co-founder Jake Palmateer said the goal is for people not to register their assault weapon as an act of civil disobedience. 

“We are opposed to registration because the evidence is clear that registration leads to confiscation,” he said.

This fear of confiscation has apparently been given new life by a Canadian broadcaster who claimed that the same thing had happened there. He works for Sun News, which unsurprisingly in referred to as "Fox News North."

In fact Canada DOES have fairly aggressive gun registration policies. Which has resulted in an incredibly low number of gun deaths.

This from Business Insider:  

The U.S.'s neighbor to the north also has outstandingly low gun casualty statistics. In 2009, there were 0.5 deaths per 100,000 from gun homicide — only 173 people. Still, the ownership is comparatively high — there are 23.8 firearms per 100 people in the country. 

There is no legal right to possess arms in Canada. It takes sixty days to buy a gun there, and there is mandatory licensing for gun owners. Gun owners pursuing a license must have third-party references, take a safety training course and pass a background check with a focus on mental, criminal and addiction histories. 

Licensing agents are required to advise an applicant's spouse or next-of-kin prior to granting a license, and licenses are denied to applicants with any past history of domestic violence. Buyers in private sales of weapons must pass official background checks. 

Canadian civilians aren't allowed to possess automatic weapons, handguns with a barrel shorter than 10.5 cm or any modified handgun, rifle or shotgun. Most semi-automatic assault weapons are also banned. As a result of exemptions, several kinds of assault weapons are still legal in Canada, although this has been the source of some controversy. 

And guess what, so far losing access to those automatic weapons has NOT resulted in martial law or the emergence of a police state in Canada, which is the conspiracy theory used by the NRA and 2nd Amendment fetishists in this country to argue for no gun registration or control at all.

Call me crazy, but the idea of having fewer automatic weapons on the streets, and low gun casualty statistics like those enjoyed by Canada, does not exactly make me terribly sensitive to the concerns of the chubby old guys who fear that losing their shiny black penis extender will negatively impact their manhood.

We need to make a change in this country, and it needs to happen now.