Earlier this month, shared a remarkable story out of Connecticut involving thousands of gun owners defying new state gun control laws. Anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 gun owners in Connecticut became Class D felons overnight after failing to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily passed gun control law last year. The deadline for registration was January 1, 2014, and it looks like the state is now taking some action.
Officials are reportedly notifying gun owners who submitted late applications that they have one last chance to get rid of their “illegal” weapons.
State officials did accept some gun registration applications that were submitted after the Jan. 4 deadline, however, not all late applications were accepted, the Journal Inquirer reports.
“But rather than turn that information over to prosecutors, state officials are giving the gun owners a chance to get rid of the weapons and magazines,” the report adds.
So gun owners who actually tried to register their guns and magazines, intentionally late or not, are now on the state’s radar for owning guns that became illegal overnight. Owning an unregistered semi-automatic rifle or high-capacity magazine that was legal prior to Jan. 3 is now a class D felony under the new law.
The Capitalism Institute appears to have obtained a copy of the notarized letters Connecticut officials are sending:
What is most incredible about the gun laws is the way they are being retroactively enforced. There appears to be no grandfather clause to exempt once legal gun owners, which is an eerie precedent to set.
“It's like we're told over and over again: The target of these laws… [are] the ‘bad guys,’” Stu said. “But you're turning millions of law-abiding, good people who do these things the right way into criminals… without their knowledge… You got to believe a lot of people in Connecticut had no idea that they went from legal to illegal because the calendar changed.”
There are a good number of people who probably did know about the change of law and chose to defy it anyway, but it is really semantics at this point. When you consider what Attorney General Eric Holder recently told a group of state attorneys general, it is clear this country is headed toward lawlessness.
“As Eric Holder said when he was talking to the AGs around the country: ‘Well, you have to think about this and use your heart. You know. Sure, we have been a Defense of Marriage Act, but we're not going to enforce that one because what's right and just trumps law.’ Oh, does it, Eric? Does it,” Glenn asked exasperatedly. “I guess I feel the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. And I know what the Constitution says… This is what happens when you pick and choose laws. There is no rule of law anymore.”