Americans routinely register their cars, bikes and dogs, generally without a yelp of protest. So why not their semiautomatic assault rifles and handguns, which may not always be as lethal as their autos but are certainly more so than their 10-speeds and terriers? Because, argued the National Rifle Association in a suit to throw out a 1989 California law that, in effect, banned possession of unregistered assault guns, the U.S. Constitution guarantees every citizen an unrestricted right to bear arms. California gun owners seem to agree. As a year-end deadline passed, only 18,000 of perhaps 200,000 such weapons had been registered.
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