Letter: Registry flawed
Date: Jun 5, 2006 4:58 PM
PUBLICATION: Calgary Herald
DATE: 2006.06.05
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Q: Queries – Quibbles – Quirks
PAGE: A15
BYLINE: Gerry Gamble
SOURCE: Calgary Herald
WORD COUNT: 188

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Registry flawed

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Guns – Re: “World is watching gun registry’s fate,” Kris Kotarski,
Opinion, May 27.

Kris Kotarski’s article is so fraught with misinformation it is hard to
determine where to begin.

The claim that the registry tells the police if a firearm is present at
a residence is outlandish. No police officer with a shred of logic would
trust the information from the registry to determine the presence of a
firearm at a call.

One need look no further than the Mayerthorpe tragedy or the shooting of
Const. Valerie Gignac to disprove this seriously flawed contention. One
of the auditor general’s chief criticisms of the registry was that the
information in it couldn’t be trusted.

Kotarski never explains how keeping track of the firearms of Canadian
hunters and target shooters is remotely connected with the world trade
in illicit firearms.

He says other countries are looking to emulate Canada’s registry.

I didn’t realize there was a great world demand for a horrendously
expensive, inefficient firearm registration system that has never been
proven to make citizens safer.

Contrary to being the envy of other countries, the registry’s
implementation has made us a laughing stock — the country where a gun
control system with a 500-times cost overrun failed to protect anyone.

That is nothing to be proud of.

Gerry Gamble,
St. Catharines, Ont.