The Navajo Nation is the largest Indian reservation (175,000 members) and covers part of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The Navaho Tribal Council wants to institute total registration of all guns with the tribal police in a central registry.
What is more egregious to me is the following...While the Navajo Bill of Rights and Nation Code guarantees a right to keep and bear arms “in a manner in which does not breach or threaten the peace of unlawfully damage or destroy or otherwise infringe upon the property rights of others” it does so with no provision to register firearms in the nation.
The Navajo Nation does have a right to institute these oppressive rules for their land; but really, getting a permission slip to sell or loan a gun to another person?Vintage or homemade firearms made after 1898 without serial numbers would have to be serialized to comply with the mandate.
Those who own a gun currently in the nation would have to register within 180 days and keep a copy of the registration. Before a registered gun could be transferred to another person, an owner would first have to contact tribal police and get authorisation. This includes “selling, assigning, pleading, leasing, loaning, giving away or otherwise disposing of” any registered firearm.
When 2 people go out shooting, if you hand a gun to your friend to shoot it, will Navaho residents have to first get permission from the Tribal police?
Is the tribe really going to throw people in jail for not registering every gun and serializing old heritage guns? It's going down the road of total control too far.
