Dutch's reasonable attitude towards a registration/education process is one of those things that seems reasonable, until you break it down under an analysis of the founders' purpose for the 2nd amendment -- we aren't guaranteed the right to bear arms to hunt, to sport shoot, to collect, or even necessarily to defend ourselves from the occasional nutbag. Rather, we are guaranteed our right to bear arms because while our government is charged with securing our inalienable rights and liberties, history shows that more often than not it fails, and the rights of the people to bear arms is guaranteed just so that they may defend their own liberties when that government fails (not if) -- we are guaranteed the right to bear arms to defend ourselves more against enemies domestic, rather than foreign. Our founders were well aware that without armaments they could not have thrown off the government of King George, and were determined that the American population should maintain such a right to liberate itself again from the tyranny that even the best intended government inevitably develops into.
To accept a registration program is to take the first step, and I mention it not for inflammatory analogy purposes but just for historical accuracy, that Hitler's Germany took -- first identify the gun owners so that you may later disarm them. To accept on top of that an educational program where the very government that we are armed to defend ourselves against has the discretion to determine whether you are skilled or educated enough to bear arms, is to virtually surrender the right. The educational standards will inevitably change with each administration, and no administration wishes their subjects to be free enough to overthrow their dictates, so the right will continue to be eroded, just as it has for the last 100 years. Sooner or later the tyranny of a scared and unarmed majority, who would rather rely upon others to defend what is left of their rights rather than do it themselves, will ensure that only the standing army has sufficient education and training to bear arms, and we should just thank them and wait for them to save us when things go wrong. No thanks. I am on none of the "lists" that the government may assemble from sales/registrations/permits, and I won't be. The closest I will come is to take the damn hunters' safety class so I can legally harvest meat for my family, but you can bet your arse I'll be using a "borrowed" rifle for that class...
We can't agree to surrender our right to take responsibility for our own lives and safety based on knee jerk reactions to violent actions of nutbags, nor based on what seems a "reasonable" restriction for the safety of all. Yes, we need to be skilled and practiced gun owners in order to reduce the "ammo" we provide the progressives from gun accidents, but we cannot incrementally surrender to their agenda -- and their agenda is that only the state be armed. No thank you.
