There’s a scene at the end of the animated film Despicable Me after the villain Vector’s master plan has gone horribly awry, and he finds himself on the surface of the Moon, with the Earth in the background. Realizing his predicament, he utters a short succinct phrase.

Governor Dannel Malloy and the government of the state of Connecticut are having their own “Oh, poop” moment, now that they’ve tallied the number of citizens who have registered their “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines” required by the state’s unconstitutional gun laws, compared that to the estimated number of applicable weapons and magazines in the state, and realize they’ve been ignored.

Historically speaking, 90-percent or more of those required to comply with gun registration laws in the U.S. refuse to do so, and there is no reason to suspect that this registration attempt in Connecticut is any different. I’ve seen estimates of 1,000,000 firearm magazines that should have been registered under the law, but the state reports registering only 40,000… just 4 percent.

Against this backdrop of failure, the anti-gun government of Connecticut is contemplating an “amnesty” to encourage those who haven’t registered to do so, and the local media is more than willing to do their part in the spin game:

Amid concerns about gun owners who failed in their last-minute attempts to register now-illegal assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines, lawmakers are considering granting an amnesty period for people who missed the registration deadline. The comprehensive gun-control bill enacted last spring required owners of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to register the guns and declare ownership of the magazine if they wished to keep them. About 50,000 assault weapons were registered last year, and close to 40,000 people declared possession of magazines – many of them doing so during the final days of December. But legislative leaders in recent weeks have raised concerns with the governor’s office that some individuals who attempted to register their weapons were prevented from doing so as a result of early post office closings on New Year’s Eve.

There were a number of craven souls that did line up in the last few days of December to register their arms and magazines, but that is not the reason that Connecticut’s government is spurred to call for amnesty.

They’re calling for an amnesty period because their internal estimates likely show that their attempt to browbeat the citizenry into registering their arms for future confiscation has been a abject failure, and they are desperate to do anything they can do to encourage compliance now that their threats have failed.