According to pro-control Violence Policy Center last month (05/00), “Licensing systems are very expensive to administer. Canada’s experience with its full licensing and registration system, begun in December 1998, is not encouraging.” VPC note how the Canadian system cost many times more than expected, and “was running up an annual bill nearly 10 times higher than the government’s original forecast.” Conclude the gun grabber extremists: “Using these figures as a baseline for America’s arsenal of 65 million handguns, the estimated cost of such a system here is staggering.”

Oh, but surely the control nuts still said registration and licencing would be well worth the cost ? with many, many, many murders, rapes, assaults and robberies averted? You decide:

Violence Policy Center admits, “Most importantly, licensing and registration in America would have little effect on the vast majority of gun violence, such as unintentional gunshot deaths, suicides and the majority of homicides.”

The anti-gun propagandists at VPC actually admit that the comparison between registering guns and registering cars is a red herring when it comes to their other big gripe ? supposed safety problems. They acknowledge that “licensing and registration ? the primary purpose of which was to enforce a system of taxation ? had virtually no effect on automobile death and injury.”

Source, the Violence Policy Web page at http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/licreg.htm