Stolen gun reporting passes in Baltimore

Story here – the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a measure which requires gun owners to report stolen guns to the police within a 24 hour period, which would automatically make you a criminal if your house was burgled while you were on vacation and didn’t report the crime.

Stolen gun reporting requirements often seem pretty harmless on the surface – I mean, who wouldn’t want gun owners to report stolen firearms to the police?  It seems like such a “common sense” measure, right?  And that’s the thing, it is common sense…because we already do it.  You’re essentially passing a law which mandates people do something that they’ve already been doing, which is an unnecessary law to begin with, and will certainly do nothing to combat crime.  Do you really think Johnny Crackhead is going to roll into the police station and tell the cops that his Hi-Point was stolen?

Ultimately, that’s my problem with bills like this – they don’t do anything to reduce crime, they only provide another avenue by which the government can turn a law abiding gun owner into a de facto criminal, for nothing other than being on vacation.

5 Comments

  1. And now, the data the police will get is going to be bad.

    Take my couch, for example. I have this super insurance policy that, in case of ANY sort of spill, tear, cat puke, stain, etc., the company will send someone out to repair it.

    Oh, the incident can’t be more than 3 days old.

    Guess who always calls the same day it “happened”?

    Same thing here. The law abiding aren’t going to want to go to jail, so they’ll simply claim it was stolen early in the morning or something. Now, the cops will have bad data to go off of in tracking the gun. Or, those who would have reported it won’t for fear of reprisal.

    This is nothing more than a ploy to make gun ownership so onerous that no one would want to do it any more.

  2. These laws are very dangerous side-steps to get in position for confiscation. When they come to confiscate your firearm,” I lost it” or “I gave it away” or “It was stolen” will all be grounds for arrest.

    Incrementalists, who fill every bureacracy, are patient and know they have plenty of time on their side.

  3. Take your guns with you when you go on vacation. You’ll be safer, and you won’t come home to find out you’re now a felon.

  4. NY’s reporting requirement for stolen guns is “within 24 hours of the discovery that they’re missing”. A little bit better, at least.

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