S.940 would require any handgun dealer or owner to immediately report the loss or theft of a handgun to a law enforcement agency. Just how this law would be enforced is unclear. If law enforcement finds a lost or stolen gun how can it be proven that the original owner willfully failed to report the loss of the weapon, and wasn’t simply unaware of the loss? It will also be difficult to impossible to trace back any lost or stolen gun to an individual absent a mandatory statewide gun registry, an initiative which itself proved a failure, due to noncompliance, when tried in Canada.
This proposed bill punishes a victimless crime (failure to report a loss) and would open the door to even more serious violations of civil liberties, such as a gun registry.