It’s been a saying for a long time that freedom of speech is in the First Amendment because our right to criticize the government is the most important one; and the Second Amendment is there in case the crooks try to take the First Amendment away. Residents in New Zealand are now learning this lesson the hard way.

Every gun owner in New Zealand is required to have their firearms registered with the federal government. Through a vaguely worded statute, citizens have to be a “fit and proper person” to be allowed to own a gun. That gives the government a lot of latitude when it comes to revoking firearms licenses and confiscating guns from people. What exactly is a “fit and proper person?”

You are not a fit and proper person in New Zealand if you criticize the government, it turns out. (Surprise!) There’s an upstart political movement in New Zealand that calls themselves SovCit, which is short for Sovereign Citizens. The group’s members criticize the tyrannical New Zealand government as illegitimate, especially in the wake of the COVID vaccine mandates and lockdowns.

You can probably guess what happened next. New Zealand authorities went out of their way to identify 62 gun owners who belong to SovCit and revoked their firearms licenses. The government is now in the process of confiscating all their lawfully owned guns since they are not fit and proper persons.

Does everyone see how that scam works? No free people should ever submit to a federal gun registry. The whole point of gun ownership is so that the people can replace their government if it becomes rotten to the core. If the government knows where all the guns are then it’s a short trip to the politicians making up excuses to take them away.