Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

guest column:

Question 1 a first step in eroding Nevada’s gun laws

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Stavros Anthony

In a recent editorial (“NRA’s wailing doesn’t drown out facts on background checks,” Sept. 4-10 edition), The Sunday claims the Question 1 gun-control ballot initiative is an “attempt at reasonable gun control” and portrays opponents as “fear-mongering.” But in the same breath, The Sunday acknowledges expanded background checks would will not solve gun violence and adds, “it is a step in the right direction.”

That means that if the state were to adopt Question 1, which would criminalize virtually all private firearms transfers, gun-control supporters would immediately be calling for even more gun-control laws. That is exactly how it has played out in every other state that has adopted a “universal” background check law.

California, Maryland and New York have gun bans. As former Stockton, Calif., Mayor Barbara Fass said of her state’s ban on so-called assault weapons, which was the first such ban in the nation, “It will happen one very small step at a time, so that by the time people have ‘woken up’ to what’s happened, it’s gone farther than what they feel the consensus of American citizens would be.” It is not “fear-mongering” to say that Question 1 will be followed by calls for even greater restrictions on our constitutional right to keep and bear arms; it is simply what has happened in every other state. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in 1996 about the Clinton gun ban: “Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.”

Consider how this incremental approach to gun control has worked (or not worked!) in other states. For example, in neighboring California, politicians pushed “universal” background checks as the magic pill to solve crime. But that wasn’t enough for the anti-gun lobby. Now it’s pushing to force gun dealers to record video of every gun or ammunition purchaser, as well as their gun and ammunition storage areas, their parking lots and the surroundings of their stores — and retain all that footage on the premises for at least five years. Law-abiding gun owners will be forced to pay the price of all those video cameras and hard drives. Seattle recently adopted a $25 tax on every firearm sale and a 5-cents-per-round tax on ammunition. Gun-control laws have failed spectacularly in cities such as Chicago and Baltimore, both of which are experiencing record levels of gun violence this year.

Gun-control advocates have run out of new gun laws to restrict gun rights, and their “solution” is to seek to limit the gun rights of those in neighboring states. Ultimately, they want to impose their state’s failed gun laws on the entire country by having Congress pass similar national gun-control laws.

Question 1 gun-control supporters, largely bankrolled by New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, will be back pushing for more gun-control laws because they, like The Sunday, know Question 1 won’t make Nevadans any safer. They know that “universal” background checks can work only if the federal government has a paper trail to follow — through a national, central federal database of every gun in America and who owns it. Even the Obama administration has admitted that for “universal” background checks to be effective, it “depends on … requiring gun registration.”

To claim that law-abiding gun owners and Second Amendment supporters like myself are “fear-mongering” is false. We are simply looking at how Bloomberg has pushed his gun-control agenda in other states: incrementally. We know that Question 1 will lead to even further restrictions of our rights. Don’t be fooled. Question 1 is not “reasonable gun control.” It is part of a larger national agenda to make it nearly impossible for law-abiding citizens to protect and defend themselves.

Stavros Anthony is a Las Vegas city councilman.

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