But the reality is that it remains fiction. None of us are flying off to other galaxies or traveling back in time to converse with our ancestors. However, for at least one Maryland legislator who is bent on controlling not only your weapons but you as well, science fiction is a present-day reality.
State Representative Pam Queen is championing new legislation that would mandate an “embedded tracker” to be installed in firearms before they can be transferred to another individual. Her outlandish bill reads this way:
“FOR the purpose of prohibiting a person from engaging in a certain bulk firearm transfer unless each firearm that is part of the transfer contains a certain tracker; requiring a seller or other transferor who engages in a bulk firearm transfer to transmit to the Secretary of State Police certain information; requiring the Secretary to establish a certain database; and generally relating to tracking technology for firearms.”
Besides being steeped in obtuse political-speak, HB 704 demands that the tracking device embedded into your firearm will result in destroying the gun’s functionality if it is removed.
Specifically, the proposal declares that the embedded device must not be “removed, disabled, or destroyed without rendering permanently inoperable or destroying the frame or receiver.”
Even better. State authorities would be capable of tracking the gun’s location — and thus the gun owner — in real time 24 hours a day.
It is tough to know where to even start in ripping apart this intrinsically silly legislation, but let’s try. A great effort was made by the National Shooting Sports Federation’s general counsel, Larry Keene. The attorney went straight to the point in tearing down the delegate’s proposal.
“Not only is this a clear invasion of privacy rights and constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure, this is an idea that is not even technologically possible. This is the stuff of Hollywood — and anti-gun politicians that don’t understand the first thing about firearms or manufacturing processes.”
To be clear, the technology described in the bill titled, “Firearms — Tracking Technology,” does not exist. Parts of it might be feasible individually, but putting it together as a package is the stuff that movies are made of.
Then there’s the matter of the Constitution. For some politicians, the revered document that our entire legal system is based upon is a pesky nuisance that must be worked around at every turn. For the rest of us, including law-abiding gun owners, the Constitution is a wall of protection against those for whom individual rights are merely an impediment for their ultimate goals.
HB 704 would establish a permanent database to record the location and movements of firearms and their owners. It doesn’t matter the purpose, whether it’s a hunting trip, sport shooting, or concealed carry for self-defense, the state will always know the weapon’s location.
And through that, your location as well.
So much for the Fourth Amendment right to privacy, and that doesn’t even cover the Fifth Amendment’s right to due process. Americans would be tracked and recorded for simply exercising their Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
Who among us would want to submit our privacy to a permanent state database for enjoying our constitutional freedoms?
Lawmakers are quite skilled in framing the most insidious proposals in the most innocent of terms. However, there are times when a slip of the tongue occurs and someone says the quiet part out loud. This is one of those times.
This bill shows just how little regard the anti-gun zealots have for the most basic of constitutional freedoms. The fact that the proposal is technologically impossible matters little, as it is the intent of the lawmaker that should alarm freedom-loving Americans and send them scrambling to find new ways to support their Second Amendment rights.
