Guns and Cars.

With gun control once again in the news in Canada the thought came to mind of whether things would be different if a slight change was made to the concept. Treat guns like we do cars. After all you can own as many cars as you want without any sort of government involvement. It's only if you actually want to use them they get interested. So if you want a car sitting on your lawn to look at and maybe start the motor up on you're perfectly welcome to. But if you actually want to use it you need it both to be licenced and to have a valid operator's licence. Imagine guns were the same way. Want to have 2 dozen rifles in your basement? Go ahead. But if you want to actually shoot them you'll need them registered and you'll need a gun operator's permit. Hmmm, somehow I doubt it would prove any more popular than the current concept.

Many of the more hard core opponents of Canadian gun control are influenced by the situation south of the border and the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. In a way it surprises me that the idea of a "well regulated militia" included in that amendment was never interpreted in a way to justify certain forms of firearms controls. It could be argued that part of the operation of such a militia is the government knowing the location of firearms and who owns them, on the basis that adult males are members of the militia unless they indicate otherwise. So registration of private arms could possibly be justified even if bans on certain types of firearms and restrictions on things like concealed carry couldn't. At least to the best of my knowledge it has never been interpreted in such a fashion.