Oregon Sheriff: Background Check Law Unenforceable Without Gun Registry

Oregon’s SB 941—the legislation requiring background checks for all gun sales—went into effect on August 9, but Lane County Sheriff Byron Trapp pointed out that the law is unenforceable without an accompanying statewide gun registry.

To be clear, Trapp did not call for a gun registry but simply observed that those who fashioned and passed the law actually heaved new gun control upon the backs of Oregonians which is unenforceable.

Ironically, Breitbart News made this same point when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was pushing his expanded background check bill in 2013. Literally three days before Manchin’s bill went down flames, Breitbart News reported that the government has to know where every gun is in order to know that one neighbor is not selling a gun to another without a check, or that one co-worker is not selling a gun to another without a check; or that one childhood friend is not selling a gun to another without a check, and so forth.

Until the government knows where every single gun and gun owner are located, talk of requiring a background check for every single sale is just that—talk.

Sheriff Trapp is making the same point in Oregon.

According to The Register-Guard, Trapp indicated Oregon’s SB 941 is “logistically unenforceable” because “there is no centralized registry of guns in Oregon — only five-year records of gun sale transactions — that could be used to track a gun found in a criminal’s possession.” And without a gun registry to demonstrate the origins of a given gun, Trapp explained that “offenders could claim they bought or sold a gun legally in a person-to-person sale before SB 941 became law,” and there would be no legal way of countering them.

Again—Trapp is not calling for a gun registry. Rather, he making a logical observation. But it highlights the insidious threat posed by expanding background checks inasmuch as those checks will require gun control proponents to push a gun registry to make the system work.

Sen. Manchin can deny it, Oregon lawmakers can deny it, and gun control advocates can deny it—just long enough to get expanded background checks passed—then reality sets in. And reality dictates that expanded background checks and gun registries go together.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.