MaverickNH
NES Member
Don't Be Surprised if Gun Owners Don't Comply With Gun Control Laws
Getting a law passed is not the same thing as getting people to obey.
reason.com
"Researchers investigating the effect of comprehensive background check laws in Colorado, Delaware, and Washington found an increase in such checks only in Delaware, according to a study published in 2018 in Injury Prevention. "One plausible explanation for our findings is low compliance in our study states," the researchers wrote.
But trying to compel compliance by belatedly imposing registration requirements is also a losing bet. Gun policy is a divisive issue and people know that some politicians want to outlaw and even confiscate what is currently legal; they don't seem inclined to make that goal easy to achieve. When Connecticut required owners of so-called "assault weapons" (really, semi-automatic rifles with a military appearance) to register their property with the state, it achieved all of 15 percent compliance; compliance in New York with a similar rule topped out at 5 percent."
"Although Democratic opinion is little changed since 2017, GOP support for an assault-style weapons ban has dropped substantially, from 54% in 2017 and 50% in 2019 to 37% today," Pew Research noted in April of this year. "Similarly, Republican support for a federal gun sale database is 13 percentage points lower than it was in 2017. There have been more modest Republican shifts away from support for ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines and background checks for private and gun show sales."
Gallup finds a similar hardening in attitudes, with the gap between Republicans and Democrats over gun policy widening from an average of 22 points to 47 points, mostly as a result of the GOP's growing opposition to gun control measures."