Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo, sworn in last month, is on record wanting to scuttle the long-standing handgun registry in Las Vegas. (Photo: LVMP)
Guns dot com suggested by George Jefferson with the following comment: "While it is likely that background checks will pass in Nevada,we still hope for positive change."
Las Vegas area gun owners may soon be able to disregard the county’s 67-year-old blue card program, the only one of its kind in the state, which requires registration of handguns.
Implemented in 1948, when the area was frequented by notorious East Coast mobsters such as Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Clark County’s mandatory handgun registry survived a 1989 preemption law by being grandfathered, effectively making it the only place in Nevada that requires gun registration. However there is a new sheriff in town and he is ready to pull the plug on the program.
“I believe that it’s a redundant system,” Sheriff Joe Lombardo told media last fall while he was a candidate for his current office.
With Lombardo now in the driver’s seat, the powerful Republican Speaker of the state Assembly, John Hambrick, has filed legislation to run in the relic of Vegas’s bad old days.
Hambrick’s bill, AB 127, would homogenize gun laws in the state, striking language that exempts Clark County’s gun registry. Currently the county, with some exceptions, mandates that all handguns with a barrel less than 12 inches be registered within 72 hours of being purchased by an area resident. Those who move to the county and stay more than 60 days likewise have to obtain a blue card – known as such by its color – from police. Registration involves a cursory background check and is without fees to the gun owner.
A similar effort in 2013 brought opposition from both Henderson Police Department and Las Vegas Metro leaders who felt the registry of some 1.2 million handguns is a valuable investigative tool for law enforcement. Even if the local police agree with the sheriff this time around, there are still other factors at play.
Further, community groups have already gone on record opposing any move to discontinue the registry.
“Is it helping them solve crimes because that was the end goal?” asked Jocelyn Torres with Progress Now Nevada Action prior to AB 127’s introduction. “Is it helping them solve crimes that are happening in our community? I think we would need a little more research, more hard numbers from them showing why they would want to get rid of it.”
Some interesting points:
1. counties, and presumably cities, can be exempted from state law.
2. mass confiscations did not happen in Clark County.
3. the gun registration has helped in solving crimes.
1. counties, and presumably cities, can be exempted from state law.
ReplyDeleteBecause as this state law was written, Clark County's registration abomination was "grandfathered" in--a situation applicable to this state, and this county, affecting precisely nowhere else.
2. mass confiscations did not happen in Clark County.
And with the abolition of this abomination, never will.
3. the gun registration has helped in solving crimes.
Trampling the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, etc., would help "in solving crimes," too--that doesn't make such tyranny acceptable.
1. Maybe some of the other states have this too. And maybe some of the others could adopt it.
Delete2. So you think that given enough time, mass confiscations would happen. It's just a matter of time?
3. We're not talking about the 4A or the 5A, we're talking about registering guns, which obviously in Nevada's Clark County is not tyranny and in fact has been the law of the land for a long time.
Maybe some of the other states have this too.
DeleteHave what? Municipal gun laws that were already in place when the state passed a preemption law, which specifically left those gun laws intact? If so, those municipalities are already free to enforce their laws. Illinois has a weird kind of hybrid preemption law, that was part of the new concealed carry law. Most municipal gun laws are now preempted, but cities had a window of opportunity to pass "assault weapon" bans. As for other states with preemption laws adopting a law that grandfathers already existing municipal gun laws, how many can there be, given the fact that such municipal gun laws are already invalid?
So you think that given enough time, mass confiscations would happen. It's just a matter of time?
I'm saying the threat can only be dispelled by prohibiting a gun registry.
We're not talking about the 4A or the 5A . . .
Who's "we"? I'm talking about any part of the Bill of Rights that could be trampled in the name of "solving crimes." The 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments are all three prime examples, and trampling any one of them is indeed tyranny.
"So you think that given enough time, mass confiscations would happen. It's just a matter of time?
DeleteI'm saying the threat can only be dispelled by prohibiting a gun registry."
Hey, Master of Evasion, was that a yes?
Hey, Master of Evasion, was that a yes?
DeleteI claim "mastery" over none, but my answer remains that registration makes confiscation vastly easier, and thus vastly more likely, and is therefore utterly unacceptable.
I'd like to know specifically what crimes it did solve. We have one person in support of the law asking that question. Did she get an answer?
ReplyDeleteState law currently allows only Clark county based on its population to have been grandfathered exemption for its registration scheme. With the removal of that exemption CC would be in violation of state law should they choose to continue its practices due to preemption laws...It would not be the first time a city or county has chosen to ignore state law in Nevada...The city of North Las Vegas continues to violate the rights of Nevadans by ignoring state law regarding the carrying of firearms in a vehicle without having a CCW .
ReplyDeleteI have been in contact with both of my state Reps..who both assure me they support Speaker Hambrick"s bill as do I. I will also be contacting the Governor as well as Sheriff Lombardo and every other member of the state legislature ..should this pass it would be a positive change for Nevadans
Typical gun loons could care less about solving/stopping crime.
ReplyDelete