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Eulalio Tordil (courtesy nydailynews.com)

I was wondering how Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun agitprop arm thetrace.org would spin the fact that Homeland Security cop Eulalio Tordil murdered three people despite the fact that a court had ordered him to surrender his guns. A reasonable person might conclude that Tordil’s ability to secure a gun after the judge’s ruling reveals the utter futility of court-ordered gun confiscation. Trace writer Dan Friedman ain’t that kind of guy. Here’s his take . . .

Two months [before Tordil killed his wife and went postal] he had surrendered at least 10 guns under a judge’s order issued after Tordil’s wife accused him of physically and sexually abusing his family.

But Tordil, a Federal Protective Service officer, kept at least one weapon when he handed in the rest of his arsenal: a .40-caliber Glock he allegedly used to carry out the shootings on May 4 and 5.

Tordil bought the gun legally in Las Vegas in 2014, said State’s Attorney John McCarthy at a hearing on Monday where Tordil was denied bond.

Tordil kept the weapon by exploiting a weakness in state and federal laws designed to keep domestic abusers from using weapons: Local law enforcement had no way of knowing he owned it.

Maryland has a handgun registry. But Nevada, where Tordil purchased the Glock, does not. Nor is there a federal registry of firearms, the spectre of which the National Rifle Association and its allies have used to knock down a range of legislation.

David Cheplak is a spokesman for the Baltimore Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which traced the gun, found in Tordil’s car, to a federally licensed dealer in Las Vegas. He said that if Tordil had bought the weapon in Maryland, he would have been required to register it there with state police.

So if Tordil had registered the GLOCK, it would have been confiscated. And Tordil couldn’t possibly have secured another firearm — oh wait. He did. OK, then he couldn’t have used alternative murder methods such as a knife, his car, a baseball bat, a can of gasoline and matches, etc. Actually, he could.

Did you catch that? Tordil used two .40 caliber GLOCKs in his rampage. Where’d he get the second one? And why didn’t The Trace mention it? Yet another sin of omission, in an ends-justify-the-means kinda way.

And just in case you’re considering entertaining The Trace’s opinion that America needs national gun registration — or at least a 50 state gun registration system — their article later points out that “just two of [the 10 confiscated] guns were registered in Maryland.” What does that tell you? It tells The Trace that we need more gun control laws! Implied, but not directly stated: comprehensive state forearms registration and/or a national gun registry.

Maryland has a relatively robust law aimed at alleged domestic abusers. The authority to require suspects to give up guns has “enormous benefits for victims of domestic violence,” [Prince George’s County sheriff’s office spokesperson Sharon] Taylor says, but is limited by the lack of a totally effective gun registry.

In a country with over 300 million guns — a significant percentage of which are in criminal hands — there is no such thing as a totally effective gun registry. The Trace and its ilk can blame surrounding states that don’t have gun registries but the fact remains: gun registration doesn’t reduce crime. Why would it?

Given the inherent fallibility of a gun registry, given the fact that a government gun registry enables government confiscation of firearms from otherwise law-abiding citizens, given that the Firearm Owners Protection Act bans any federal gun registry, given that the Second Amendment prohibits any federal gun registry, The Trace’s dream of national gun registration is impractical, infective, a slippery slope to government tyranny, and a violation of a civil right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

As for Tordil, the restraining order — mandating the surrender of his firearms — wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. Obviously. Well, at least to people capable of rational thought.

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40 COMMENTS

  1. This proves we need a gun registry as much as the people stabbed in Massachusetts proves that we need a knife registry.

  2. Failure means we need more of the same failure in order to cause less failure.

    Seriously though, why wasn’t this guy held in jail? Why didn’t the magical background checks keep him from getting the second gun? Why didn’t he go “oh man, I’d better not have these guns there’s a restraining order.”

    Criminals gonna crime. That’s all there is to it.

    • Yes, this is really the same topic as the felons with guns thread yesterday.

      If this dude was so dangerous he should have been disarmed by the state, then the state should have used due process and locked this nutjob away from the rest of us.

      So who failed here? Us for not registering our guns? Really?

      I think it was the state who failed to protect us from psychopathic nutjob ex-federal LEO.

      That’s what I think.

  3. Two months [before Tordil killed his wife and went postal] he had surrendered at least 10 guns under a judge’s order issued after Tordil’s wife accused him of physically and sexually abusing his family.

    Ah. I see now. If he wasn’t forced to surrender his priceless and sentimental family heirlooms maybe he wouldn’t have gone on a psycho rampage to begin with?

    If they had evidence of physical and sexual abuse, maybe they should have just arrested him, charged him, and given him a hearing, rather than steal his stuff.

    • You can’t arrest him. He is an LEO and we certainly can’t do things that might harm their career. [/sarc]

  4. Homeland Security Killer Cop’s Hidden Gun Proves All Guns Should Be Registered

    Criminals aren’t going to register their hidden guns guys. In fact, law abiding aren’t even going to register their hidden guns.

    • exactly, you never know when some prodigious law maker will craft a law to make you a felon if you can fit more than 10 .22lr up your nose or some such crap and POOF!

      your a criminal!

  5. I am NOT responsible.
    I will NOT comply.

    This concept of government involvement in our daily lives is baffling to me. The people who advocate for it are mentally defective.

  6. First off they never should have taken his firearms away and, frankly, his natural right to bear arms should not be infringed even now. This country is out of control when, just because he’s in a federal building (where his Second Amendment rights should not be infringed) they can take his guns away? This is what you get when you move to a place like Maryland. Guy’s not even convicted of anything yet!

  7. What are they going to do about the 300~400 million firearms ALREADY AVAILABLE. Compliance rates with the registry in Australia was about 20%, I’ve seen number around 10~15% for CT, and 5% for NY. The idiocy is strong with these gun grabbers.

  8. So, was he a resident of Nevada or Maryland when he bought the Glock? If a resident of MD, did he use some Federal Law Enforcement loophole to purchase a handgun outside his state of residence. I denied a sale of handgun to a WA resident even after he flashed his Federal LEO ID.

      • You mean, he chose not to become part of the prison population for illegally selling a handgun to a nonresident. He’s not “part of the problem”, though I’d be interested to hear what heroically defiant acts of civil disobedience you’ve committed in the name of firearms freedom. Inspire us.

        • If you aren’t willing to risk your freedom and your life for the second amendment you might as well give HRC your guns right now. (And no, surprisingly I won’t admit to committing crimes here so the Gestapo BATFags can come arrest me, but thanks for asking.)

    • Carry on, onezero, enlighten me, that was exactly my question. How the flaming hell did he “legally” purchase a handgun in NV when he’s a resident of MD? I gather you deal in firearms, is there some kind of carveout for LEOs? Because otherwise I think “legally” needs to be removed from that description. If it was a private purchase I’d like to know how they found that out.

      • The article says it was from a licensed firearms dealer, so yeah, how did this transaction go through without shipping the gun to Maryland? Was he temporarily assigned to Nevada, or a resident of Nevada at the time? (The article implies that he was a resident of Maryland.) Inquiring minds want to know.

  9. this is what worries me. that Hillary, when she wins, will push all states to start a gun registration program and then feed that to the feds for “oversight”. and since the Feds didnt start the registration, it is not constitutionally forbidden.

    Yes, i do think Hillary will win. boy, thats a hard thing to type.

  10. Taking politics out of it and only looking at economics…

    If the Canadian gun registry was spending millions of dollars to maintain a register of a tiny fraction of guns compared to the U.S, can you imagine the monumental cost of trying it in the U.S. where many small states have private stocks of guns far exceeding other countries as a whole?

    • She may not actually accomplish her goal, but I wouldn’t doubt Hillary’s determination to spend every last one of your dollars to fund the infringement of every last one of your rights. Statists gotta state.

  11. “… a totally effective gun registry”

    Is totally ineffective wishful thinking. Even up here in Soviet Canuckistan with our wayyy smaller population and even smaller number of guns it didn’t work. Also no one on the progressive side will say this but the argument that a registry will be so police can trace guns used in crime is only a side “benefit”. The TRUE purpose is taking them ALL from you over some minor slight against the state. So “Registration leads to confiscation” should actually be “Registration IS confiscation”.

  12. CSGV’s minions are crying about state laws and loopholes and begging for a national registry. They are saying that we need FEDERAL gun registration, because the states are so inept at writing effective gun laws….

    Ok flip side to that is a federal CC permit which is legal in all 50 states and all cities… Then how much will they want federal intervention into gun laws???

  13. They must mean like those registered AKs used during the Paris attack… Or the registered explosive in Brussels, perhaps?

  14. How can anyone think it is a good idea to publicly emasculate and humiliate a violent sociopathic control freak, by issuing one of these court orders at the request of the victim he seeks to control, and then let the guy, who now has nothing to lose, go free?

  15. As A. Hill said, Canada is proof that the universal gun registration thing is a naive fantasy at best,

    Billions of dollars wasted over several years, and hardly a crime solved nor prevented. Although a few locales did use it to perpetrate their own crimes by confiscating legally owned property from peaceful people (was that a feature of the system or a bug?).

    Law enforcement almost universally regarded it as a waste of time and resources. The only people who liked the idea were a cabal of activists who get a shiver down their leg when they think of all the good things they’re doing for to everyone else.

    • Evidence suggests that the RCMP (which doesn’t think that anyone except them should have guns) liked the registry, since they maintained their copies of the lists even after being told to destroy them–which in turn lead to the break-ins and (illegal) confiscations of firearms “for safe keeping” in that flood inundated town a few years ago.

  16. Registration is a pipe dream. It will always be ineffectual. Anyone can hide a gun and then say he doesn’t know where it is or that it must’ve been recently stolen, and since we can’t lock him up and throw away the key, guess what? He keeps his gun.

  17. Explain to me again how universal gun registration will work better than prescription med control?

    No need to explain how you don’t care about the pain my mother can’t medicate, or the hassle, expense, and yes, more pain, of repeated “check-ups” and tiny prescriptions you inflict on her, by flailing and failing to impact the BGs misusing pain killers you are trying to get at. I get that you don’t care about her pain. What you’re doing is so ineffective, however, that I’m beginning to thing imposing the hassle and control is the point.

  18. As long as it’s possible to buy a stolen gun out of the trunk of some guy’s car in an alley or parking lot, or just go over to a thief’s house and buy one, a registry is pointless.

  19. Not really tough. The confiscation without any conviction or even a suspicion of a crime is very obviously unconstitutional, therefore the registry which exists only to facilitate such illegal confiscations is also unconstitutional. If you think he’s dangerous, then keep him in jail. That, of course, is *also* unconstitutional without a trial, but if removing the rights of tens of millions of law abiding citizens might save even one life, shouldn’t we … AAaak! Can’t do it, just too stupid, wouldn’t be prudent.

    • Without suspicion of a crime is one thing, having a TRO for domestic abuse is another, and complies with all norms of due process of law. Domestic abuse is a crime, after all. A warrant accusing someone of a crime is sufficient to support a seizure of all guns/drugs/records etc. within the scope of the warrant. No prior arrest nor conviction is necessary.

      • True, a warrant, duly adjudicated by a law (constitution) abiding judge is sufficient. However, been to civil/family court lately? TROs are issue by civil courts, not criminal courts.Civil court judges rule, ABSOLUTELY RULE, by their own personal bias and whim. If the female spouse were to appear before the judge and plead for her safety, her tears alone are enough PROOF, for any one of those liberal SOB judges, that the MAN should be deprived of all rights and due process until such time as he can afford $$$ to prove himself innocent. Happens everyday in ‘Murica, and I cannot BELIEVE I served 22 years to defend this BS.

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