The track record on disobeying such laws is very clear. Residents of Connecticut and New York defied requirements that they register their so-called “assault weapons.” Gun owners in Colorado ignored mandates that they pass all their person-to-person sales through the background check system. Even the French and Germans flip the bird to laws that gun-haters can only dream of imposing in the United States, owning millions of illegal firearms that supporters of restrictions wish they didn’t have.

Exercising your liberty in total contradiction to restrictive laws is a good thing, by the way. Nothing limits the power of the state like the outer boundaries of people’s willingness to do what they’re told. Even the military recognizes this, instructing officers not to give orders that won’t be obeyed. People’s unwillingness to submit is what made Prohibition fail, and it’s what hobbled the similar ban on marijuana. Even taxes are dependent on people’s willingness to pay, since there’s always the option to work and do business off the books. “[T]he level of tax is one of the major drivers of shadow economic activity,” Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs wrote in 2013. “If governments keep tax rates low, the shadow economy is likely to be smaller.”