Chicago’s angry response to McDonald is an ordinance requiring that all handguns be registered and imposing a $115.00 tax and fee scheme on every admitted handgun owner. This raises the question of whether a city can ban handguns by prohibitorally taxing the exercise of the constitutional right (to own a handgun).   

That is what a poll tax is.   

Apparently it is settled that newspapers can be taxed. But can buying a newspaper be taxed? What about putting on a play or attending a play?   

It is clear that a criminal cannot be taxed for having a gun. It is illegal for criminals to have guns. So it would be self-incrimination to force criminal gun owners to admit that they own guns. They cannot be required to register or pay the tax or do anything else which constitutes an admission of owning a handgun.   

Gun registration has been tried in various places around the world. After 5 or 6 decades of it New Zealand repealed its registration scheme because it was very expensive to administer and had never helped solve a crime. (I have heard the same about American gun registration schemes but I don’t have a cite for this fact.)   

The history of Canadian gun registration is instructive. It was enacted in 1995 it being predicted that every Canadian firearm would be registered by 2000 at an estimated cost of $2 million. As of 2010 it is estimated that less than half the Canadian guns have been registered – at an actual cost of more than $2 BILLION. Gun registration has never helped solve a single Canadian crime.