The Tennessean has just learned the shocking fact that there is no national gun database. This news was so shocking to the paper, that it was on the front page of today’s newspaper. Not the center spread, but above the fold.
Of course, this being the purely non-biased pinnacle of reporting that is the local rag, they talked about how this hampers police departments because they have to ask the ATF to ask the manufacturer where it was initially sold, then follow the trail of bound books, yada yada yada. Of course, there’s the usual jab to the NRA for helping stop the government from creating a database. They did throw in a throw away line about how some lawmakers “feel that the act of amassing those records would in essence go a step toward creating an artificial registration system.” Um… no. That would essentially be a registry.
By the way, my thoughts that there’s not database? “Good.”
Hmmm… maybe now that the local newspaper has run this story, my mom will stop asking me if it’s expensive to register all my guns… probably not.
Nor is there a national database of what books you own, or what knives are in your kitchen, or of your religious affiliation.