I don't own any firearms, but I think I understand the issue. Gun registries cause a lot of fear for gun enthusiasts for this reason: a gun registry is the de facto first step to gun confiscation. In nearly all countries where citizens have undergone unwilling confiscation of their firearms, gun registries were involved.

I may be wrong and not know the nuances, but I am fortunate enough to read a lot of history. I'm not reading from a source, so anyone is free to correct me if I am wrong. Here are some examples of gun confiscations that ended badly, many of which involved gun registries:

• In the early 20th century Turkey disarmed its population, and then, in the same decade, started what would be known as the Armenian genocide leading to over a million recently disarmed people to be executed.

• Throughout the 1930's Hitler relied on his armed party of political activists, the Brown Shirts, to help bring him to power. At the end of the decade Hitler then implemented gun control and confiscation. We all know what happened in the 1940's to follow.

• In the early 90's, the UN championed for gun control that was implemented in Rwanda. A large part of the civilians in Rwanda were disarmed. In 1994 the Rwandan genocide against the ethnic Tutsis officially began by radical Hutu groups. This event ended with roughly one million people dead.

There are many other examples throughout history that I am ignorant of. I can't say whether or not gun registries existed in any of these cases-- I'm pretty sure it is true for Germany and Turkey.

Whether or not you think such a thing is possible in the US, the historical precedent exists and has happened time and time again. While gun registration may not lead to genocide in the US for the foreseeable future, the idea that Federal knowledge of who own guns and who doesn't is the first step towards such a tragedy. We've come a long way as a species technologically the past 2,000 years, but the nature and power of government is very much the same-- as is human nature.

As an aside, I don't see a tyrannical dictator taking control of the US, but I can't say that the precaution to avoid a disarmed populace is unwarranted.