Letter: Expensive gun registry doesn’t make us safer
Date: Feb 6, 2006 8:05 AM
PUBLICATION: The Kingston Whig-Standard
DATE: 2006.02.06
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Editorial
PAGE: 4
BYLINE: David Markotich
SOURCE: The Kingston Whig-Standard
WORD COUNT: 440

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Expensive gun registry doesn’t make us safer

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In his editorial “Police support gun registry” (Feb. 1), Paul
Schliesmann fails to provide one credible reason to maintain Canada’s
costly gun registry.

Schliesmann quotes Jack Ewatski of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of
Police (he’s not a front-line officer) making vague statements about the
value of the gun registry. Schliesmann invokes the “wishes” of the
families of the 14 young women shot and killed in the Montreal Massacre
of 1989, and he includes some of his own beliefs about the value of the
gun registry.

A deeper look into Schliesmann’s arguments reveals the flaws in his
logic. These are the same errors in judgment that led to the
establishment of the gun registry in the first place.

Schliesmann’s statement that “without the registry police would be
walking totally blind into potentially dangerous situations” is
ludicrous and insulting to the skills and professionalism of police
officers. Does Schliesmann suggest that the police were “totally blind”
on the job prior to the inception of the gun registry in the mid-1990s?

Police officers are trained professionals who employ universal
precautions, gun registry or no gun registry. They know that any
situation they deal with is potentially dangerous. As well, most
officers, I’m sure, would not trust their lives to information in the
gun registry. It would be dangerous to be influenced by information
garnered from an incomplete and inaccurate database such as the gun
registry. The registry is incomplete because criminals do not register
their guns. It is inaccurate because the data contained in it is often
in error. Given these truths, what value does the gun registry have?

Schliesmann reveals how little he knows about the millions of
responsible gun owners in Canada by claiming that it is because of the
gun registry that guns are safely stored and reported to police when
stolen. Responsible gun owners have been behaving in this manner for
generations.

Schliesmann is correct about one thing, though. The gun registry is
costly. And what value is gained from spending this money? There would
be no argument with a costly public safety program that kept people
safe, But the gun registry will never be able to accomplish that.

Prime minister-designate Stephen Harper promised to scrap the long-gun
registry because he knows that millions of Canadians recognize that the
registry is a failed idea. He knows that it will require huge ongoing
costs to maintain it. And he knows that continuing to support the gun
registry is going down the wrong road.

David Markotich
Harrowsmith