Following on the resounding success that was Canada’s long gun registry, Germany picked the tenth anniversary of a school shooting to enact their own exercise in waste and uselessness. “‘This brings about a new dimension,’ German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said. He said, however, that the registry wouldn’t necessarily prevent another massacre from taking place.” Maybe not, but Deutchlanders will feel so darned good paying for it and knowing it’s there. Expensive empty gestures über alles. But wait, it gets much worse . . .
The Germans plan to register all guns, getting ahead of the game in order to comply with a future Eurozone firearms data base requirement. But the the new law doesn’t stop at employing meticulous Teutonic record keeping, a skill at which they’re famously adept. Police will also have new power to enter homes unannounced to insure weapons are properly stored. And as everyone knows, nothing’s more comforting than answering a knock at the door and finding a German in uniform carrying a gun.
As Tony Bernardo, spokesman for the Canadian Shooting Sport Association, told torontosun.com “The last time Germany insisted on a central database for their firearms was in 1938 and we know what happened next: the state disarmed the law-abiding populace, because they knew where the guns were, and then rolled right over them.” What could possibly go wrong?