GUN DOWN THIS SYSTEM
The critics are right. The federal firearms registry just doesn’t work.
MARY JANIGAN
I USED TO nag my husband about getting rid of his rifles and shotguns until the summer the coyotes started to hunt in packs — during the daytime. They were hungry, because they had cleaned out most small prey. And when they celebrated a kill with wild yipping only 100 m from where we stood, when the neighbouring farmer advised us to be very careful outside our country home, I had a glimmer of the gulf between urban and rural Canada. But I never objected when the Liberals decided to register all gun owners — and then all long guns. I have always been uncomfortable with the gun lobby: their assumption that there is a right to bear arms, their inaccurate statistics, their twisted hyperbole. Registration is the Canadian way, I thought. It will curb gun violence, I thought. Anyway, what harm can it do? I was an idiot.
