NSA Surveillance and Guns

Today the President acknowledged that the government had received phone records from phone companies regarding calls that terror suspects had made. USA Today suggests that the calls weren't just those of terror suspects, but also those of ordinary Americans.

Now let's say the government is creating a large database of phone records. This will likely infuriate liberals and the ACLU.

Those who see no problem with this measure will likely be conservatives and say that this is necessary to protect our citizens, and that anyone who isn't doing anything wrong will be fine.

I'd like to see if those same conservatives support firearm registration. After all, what I've heard about firearm registration is that citizens are concerned the government would then have a list of people with guns who it can go after. But if you aren't doing anything wrong, and just hunting, why should you worry? For that matter, why doesn't the ACLU oppose firearm registration? After all, every citizen has the right to carry a firearm.

A similar sort of inconsistency always struck me with those people who are anti-abortion and pro-capital punishment (a common set of opinions?). After all, if it's not ok to kill a fetus, why is it ok to kill an adult, regardless of what awful thing they've done?

Tags: firearms, guns, NSA, surveillance