National Post Editorial: Good riddance to the gun registry
Date: Jun 20, 2006 8:06 AM
PUBLICATION: National Post
DATE: 2006.06.20
EDITION: All but Toronto
SECTION: Editorials
PAGE: A12
SOURCE: National Post
WORD COUNT: 673

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Good riddance to the gun registry

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At long last, the first legislative nails are being hammered into the
gun registry’s coffin. On Monday, Stockwell Day, the Public Safety
Minister, introduced a bill in the House of Commons that would amend the
Firearms Act and Criminal Code so that law-abiding Canadian hunters,
farmers and sport shooters no longer have to register their “long guns”
(rifles and shotguns). All handguns would still have to be registered,
and all potential gun owners — even long-gun owners — would still have
to take government-set safety courses, submit to criminal background
checks and obtain licences before acquiring a firearm, because those
regulations may actually prevent some firearms crimes. But gone will be
the expensive, bureaucratic and useless demand that every duck gun, deer
rifle and skeet gun be entered in Ottawa’s error-riddled database.

There will be many accusations by the registry’s supporters that the
Conservatives’ move will raise crime. No doubt gun control advocates
will point — as they have done countless times over the past decade –
to support for the registry from Canada’s police chiefs and even the
country’s largest association of front-line officers. While we certainly
respect the opinion of police officers on matters of crime prevention,
their official support for the long-gun registry has always been
misguided. As the government pointed out on Monday, according to
Statistics Canada, “of 549 murders recorded in Canada in 2003, only two
were committed with long-guns known to be registered.”

In theory, it may make sense that knowing the whereabouts of all guns
would help police solve or even prevent crimes, or increase officer
safety. But in the real world, there is no proof these theories work. No
smart policeman would ever enter a site confident there were no guns
inside based on the sketchy information in the registry. Nor, since its
inception more than a decade ago, has the long-gun registry helped
prevent a single murder or robbery. Indeed, with so few registered
long-guns used to commit crimes in Canada, it is hard to see how it ever
could.

Taxpayers, as well as gun owners, will be far better off when they see
the back of this debacle, which so far has cost more than $1-billion and
is still racking up charges of over $40-million per year.

To demonstrate that they are committed to real crime prevention, the
Tories have proposed to retain the Liberals’ safe storage and
transportation rules (some of the strongest in the Western world), which
are aimed at cutting down on the theft of guns that are later sold to
criminals on the black market. And they will keep the requirement that a
valid gun licence must be shown before a gun or even ammunition can be
purchased. In addition, the Tories will add a new requirement that
private gun owners make sure anyone they are selling a gun to is
licensed and free of a criminal record, before they transfer ownership.

From the start, many experts inside and outside government warned the
Liberals their long-gun registry would turn out to be expensive yet
hollow symbolism. Still, the idea was a vote-winner with the Liberals’
central, urban and heavily female base, so even after those warnings
proved correct, the Liberals clung to the myth that, eventually,
registration would produce tangible results. They preserved it, after
two computer systems chewed through over a third of a billion dollars
and still produced unreliable information on gun owners nearly a quarter
of the time. They persevered, even after the Auditor-General pronounced
it to be one of the biggest messes she had ever seen from government.

Thankfully, the Conservatives have never harboured such delusions and
soon Canadians will be well rid of the registry.

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BILL C-21 An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act
(non-registration of firearms that are neither prohibited nor
restricted) first reading, June 19, 2006
http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/chambus/house/bills/government/C-21/C
-21_1/C-21_cover-E.html

NEWS RELEASE: PUBLIC SAFETY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS CANADA
Ottawa, June 19, 2006 — Today in the House of Commons, the Honourable
Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, tabled legislative amendments
to free Canadians from the requirement to register their non-restricted
firearms.
http://www.psepc-sppcc.gc.ca/media/nr/2006/nr20060619-en.asp