The Honolulu Police Department thought it was a fine idea to confiscate guns of anyone with a gun and a medical marijuana card. To say they caught flak for that might just be a slight understatement. For one thing, it was a rare example of the gun rights crowd and the pro-legalization of pot crowd finding themselves on the same side of the discussion and all of that was directed at the Honolulu PD.

Now, they’re taking a step back and reviewing that new policy.

The Honolulu Police Department is reviewing a policy requiring medical marijuana users to turn over their firearms, police officials say.

The department sent letters to at least 30 gun owners last month, saying they had 30 days to surrender or transfer ownership of their guns.

The notices sparked backlash from residents, prompting the police review, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Friday.

The letters dated Nov. 13 stated the person’s ownership of firearms and ammunition was disqualified because of the use of medical marijuana.

Federal law prohibits firearm possession for unlawful users of controlled substances. Pot is classified as a controlled substance under federal law.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t negate the underlying concerns in this.

After all, the initial effort–even if it’s overturned and nothing comes of it–illustrates the dangers of gun registration. Once a firearm is registered, it can then be tracked by law enforcement and thus empower any and all confiscation efforts.

If you try to confiscate guns in Texas, Georgia, or Arizona, for example, you’re going to have a bad time. There’s no registration so there’s no telling who owns what. That means you have to go door to door looking for those firearms, and there’s no way that’s going to be popular, even with people who support registration.

But in Hawaii, all they needed to do is to send a letter and tell everyone to turn ’em all in…because they knew where they are.

Registration does little to nothing to stop crime, but it does a whole hell of a lot to make it easier for a governmental body to take away people’s guns for whatever reason they manufacture. By being good little subjects and registering your firearms–and I’m not saying to ignore the law, mind you, only that the moment a registration scheme is passed, we all go from citizens to subjects–you do nothing to impact the criminals and everything to give the government authority that our Founding Fathers clearly would have opposed.

It’s good that the Honolulu PD is taking a step back on their gun confiscation efforts. It would be better of the state of Hawaii recognized that registration’s only real use is to allow confiscation to take place. They should recognize it and fix it by removing their firearm registration system quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Our right to keep and bear arms is sacred and shouldn’t be at the whim of some bureaucrat, but that’s exactly what happened in Honolulu, and I can’t help but wonder where it will happen next.