Is Confiscation Even Possible?

Some of our politicos are talking about the outright confiscation of guns. Ignoring the legal issues for the moment, is that even remotely feasible?

There are some 300 million guns in the United States. What would be required to confiscate them? Well, lets assume that each gun owning household has, on the average, 10 guns. That means that authorities would have to physically go to 30 million houses to collect their guns. Lets assume you send 2 guys (because the confiscating officer will need a backup) to each house and that it takes about 1 hour to collect the guns. That is a 60 million man-hour task - or about 30,000 man-years. If you are going to be effective, the confiscation has to be done quickly. So lets further assume that those 30,000 man-years must be expended in 1 month! That means you have to recruit an army of 360,000 officers to confiscate guns. Somehow, given the competency of our government, I can't see this happening.

And then there is civil disobedience. Once people see confiscation taking place, they will hide their guns. Only a very few will voluntarily turn in their guns. Remember the lessons of Nazi Germany. When Jewish citizens turned in their private guns, they were typically arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

Guns are private property and the government cannot take private property from you unless you are compensated. Sure, the government can afford it, but think of the organization they would have to build to process the payments. Their track record in Katrina, Rita and Sandy demonstrate what a poor job they do in handing out emergency money. Why would gun compensation be any different?

Finally, go back and read the law suits stemming from gun confiscation during Katrina. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this is clear case law that the politicians should study before they start talking about confiscation. It was tried and the courts slammed them hard.