Friday, December 18, 2009

Gun Confiscation in Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune ran a fascinating story about the fears some of the gun owners are facing in the State of Utah.

Utah gun-rights defenders are sounding an alarm about a proposed ethics-reform ballot initiative that never mentions guns but, they believe, could lead to a gun registry for lawmakers.

At issue in the Utahns for Ethical Government proposal is a conflicts-of-interest section that would require legislators to disclose property that could be subject to government regulation. To vigilant gun owners, that's code for a gun registry because few objects are more regulated, said Charles Hardy, public policy director for the Gun Owners of Utah (GOUtah!).

The Utah gun owners have been solicited by e-mail to reject the petition.

An attorney who helped draft the initiative asserted the gun-registry interpretation is absurd. "They said that with a straight face?" asked Utahns for Ethical Government attorney David Irvine. "If there are people out there doing that, I cannot imagine the world of paranoia in which they operate."

Irvine goes on to explain that the ethics commission could only have an interest in property that carries a potential financial entanglement. An example, he said, might be real estate that a lawmaker conceivably could sell to the Utah Department of Transportation for a highway right of way. The gun owners' reaction seems even more paranoid and absurd than the claims that health care reform might end up hurting them. At least that one had some vague basis in reality. There has been talk about considering guns in the home as a health risk.

What's your opinion? Are gun owners sometimes a little paranoid? Do they sometimes read too much into things seeing opposition were none exist?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

2 comments:

  1. "Are gun owners paranoid?"

    Do you read the comments here:
    The government is evil, they are going to take our guns away, there are criminals everywhere, we have to protect ourselves from...

    Does that sound sane to you?

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  2. No, that doesn't sound sane to me at all.

    ReplyDelete