LGR dead as of midnight Apr 5th 2012

Changes to business requirements: elimination of the requirement to register non-restricted firearms Special Bulletin for Businesses No. 79
April 5, 2012

Snapshot
Implementation of Bill C-19, the Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act.

Implications
The Government of Canada has changed the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to eliminate the requirement to register non-restricted firearms effective April 5, 2012. Until further notice, due to a Court Order issued by the Quebec Superior Court, residents of Quebec are still required to register non-restricted firearms with the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program.

Beginning on April 5, 2012, firearms businesses are no longer required to obtain a Registration Certificate for non-restricted firearms from the Canadian Firearms Program (CFP). This does not impact registration requirements for restricted or prohibited firearms.

Businesses that use Business Web Services, available from the CFP website, are advised that the registration and transfer of non-restricted firearms is no longer required or supported.

Individuals and businesses buying or otherwise acquiring firearms must still have a firearms licence, and businesses are still responsible for checking the buyer’s licence. Businesses may continue to call the CFP at the toll-free number to confirm the buyer’s licence prior to completing a sale.


Finally after years of fighting this travesty of injustice. One of the chains imposed upon us is slipped. Now is a time to dance, celebrate and enjoy the taste of victory, for tomorrow it's back into the breech to do battle once more against the rest of the firearms Act.

A big thank you to all that have fought this!

Sucks though for our Quebec brethren, patience your time is coming!

Solomon Friedman testifies about gun control at Senate committee hearing

This will be like paint drying if you are not interested in the Gun Registry. If you support the elimination of the Registry, then it's sweet music to your ears. Regardless Soloman is very good at making a solid case to abolish the LGR. I encourage you to listen to all of his videos.

You twits the data is the registry!!

Sheesh what part of killing the Long Gun Registry (LGR) does the NDP not get? Bill C-19 will stop the collection of registry data for non-restricted and cause the LGR data collected to be destroyed. The data is the LGR, so keeping the data is in essence keeping the LGR. Getting rid of the LGR is not just politics for the CPC and it's supporters, but it is righting a moral wrong. The LGR and bill C-68 (Firearm Act) are seen as a form of punishment for law abiding citizens and does little to fight the real issues of violent crime.
So to have the NDP and it's members pretend that they didn't realize the Conservatives would destroy the data is almost comical and they would have to be stunningly stupid to not have foreseen such an event and I don't think Nathan Cullen is stupid. In which case his sudden "bout of conscious" in regards to possible voting against C-19 is pure political manouvering likely connected to his bid for the leadership of the NDP.
Bill C-19 is now in committee, which is controlled by the Conservatives, which means they can bring forward witnesses the last committee run by the liberals blocked from testifying. This means much of the hidden truth about the LGR failure will be recorded for future historians to ponder.

Going, going.......

Well talk about striking while the iron is hot, the Tories are already on to the 2nd reading of C-19, the bill to end the long gun registry, they have adopted a motion giving only 3 days to debate it. I am not sure what is to debate, the Tories want it gone and the data destroyed. I am in favour of this for several reasons. the 1st being the purpose of the gun registry has always been eventual confiscation, the authors of the registry have admitted this themselves and every instance in history shows these registries eventually leads to that conclusion. 2nd not having a registration paper for a firearm is a CRIMINAL offense, not a civil offense. So a law abiding gun owner could easily run afoul of the law and get a record. 3rd. It has been a complete and utter waste of money, only about 1/3rd of the legal guns in Canada were ever registered, none of the illegals guns ever where and much of the information in the registry was wrong and inaccurate. The gun registry was supposed to cost $200 million, instead somewhere near 2 billion was spent on it.

The purpose of destroying the current data is to ensure another government does not circumvent the wishes of the legal gun owners by creating another registry using the remains of this as a foundation. It also protects the privacy of gun owners and prevent the illegal use of the data by anti-gun organizations and organized crime.

Even with the passing of C-19 there will still be a long gun and handgun registry. The requirement to have handguns, restricted rifles, shotguns and prohibited firearms registered remains. personally in my view all rimfire firearms should be made non-restricted as well, not to mention other stuff.

We gun owners have waited a long time for this, but for us this is only the beginning. we won't be satisfied till there is a complete re-write of the Firearms Act and relevant sections of the Criminal Code. the current version is useless and criminalizes the law abiding gun owner. About the only thing we want to keep from the current Act is concept of training for new shooters and hunters. (funny enough about the only part of the Act that Firearm groups had input on and the only part that seems to have any positive effect). Looking forward to toasting the end of the registry with a nice bonfire of registry certificates.

The real reason the anti's fear the demise of the gun registry is not some mythical "Blood in the streets" scenario (They would actually welcome that, as they love to dance on graves) but the slow but sure realization by the general public that they have been fed a lie for the last 2 decades, a very expensive lie at that. Once the public see that the world has not come to an end they realize that most of the anti's arguments are just as hollow and the anti's will lose what creditably and funding they currently enjoy.

Murder at the Grand

An exceptional good piece by R. G. Harvie at the "Searching for Liberty Blog" regarding the recent murder of Jonathon Bacon and the pointlessness of laws that we have such as the gun registry.


In the middle of the summer holiday in Tourist Mecca Kelowna, B.C., at the Delta Grand Hotel, armed men in hoods jump out of an S.U.V. and start spraying bullets out of assault weapons at what appears to be rival gang members, reportedly killing one of them.




I was in Kelowna last summer.



Stayed at the Delta Grand, in fact. Very, very busy place.




So - it was with some sadness and shock that I read this morning that less than a year after my last visit, there are armed gang members shooting assault weapons at other gang members in the middle of the resort.


Just a few thoughts today:


a) How did this happen in the face of the National Gun Registry?


Doesn't the registry prevent people from shooting guns at other people? That's what Michael Ignatieff said as he paraded the shooting victims of KimV** Gill before the press (ignoring the fact that KimV**'s weapon was actually registered when he started shooting up Dawson College).



I'm assuming that these gangsters, when they stepped out of their SUV to commit murder were aware that we have a national gun registry. I'm assuming they realized, as they squeezed the trigger to shoot another human being, that there are strict penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm.


Definitely read the rest here

The death Rae

The Liberals (or the mortal remains) are still not quite dead, but we have hope! They have appointed Bob Rae to lead them out (more likely further in) of the darkness. Bob Rae had been the Premier of Ontario where his legacy is that of "Rae days" The hatred I hear many Ontarions voices when they speak of those times is still quite strong and vibrant, from both left and right.
On top of his baggage he also was a hardcore NDP type and one has to wonder if he is a agent of the Laytonites with a mission to destroy the Liberals in order that there will be no threat from other left wing parties to challenge the new postion of the NDP as the "Loyal opposition". Sounds tinfoilish but Socialists for all their fault are good at taking the long view on achieving their objectives.

Here is my suggestion to the Young Liberals on how to save your party. Invite all of the old guard to a convention, once they are inside throw all of their policy documents inside, bolt the doors and burn the place down. About the only one I would keep around to provide wise counsel is Bill Graham. Only then can you actually stand a chance at building a party that's not contaminated with the "natural governing party of Canada" crap. Plus throw out stupid policies like the gun registry and banning guns, stuff like that is a millstone around your necks. You have about 10 years to get the job done, study everything about the early days of the Reform Party learn from them, build your base around real issues that people will support thick and thin. I also suggest you change the name a bit to something like the "New Liberals"

Coming out of the gun closet part 2

Me attempting to look good in an IPSC competition


Sorry for the lag between posts, kids, work, life and video games keep getting in the way! This is the 2nd post in this series, a link to the preceding post is at the bottom of the post.

Do you need a licence and how do you get one?



Short answer is yes, long answer is that if the gun you have is not considered a firearm then no you do not. These would be pellet guns with a muzzle velocity below 500 feet per second (FPS) and antique guns. Police Officers on duty do not need a licence to carry their issue firearms or taking possession of a firearm while carrying out their duties. It comes to a shock to them that they can’t stroll into a gun store and buy a gun or ammo without the licence. As the executor of a will you can take possession of firearms as part of the estate, see more here.

The current gun licence is commonly referred to as a “PAL” which means Possession and Acquisition Licence. The old licences were called FAC’s and there is also the POL which stands for Possession Only Licence. These are being phased out.

The PAL is a Licence for the Individual. It allows them with restrictions to buy, sell and own guns. It is distinct from the gun registry. To get a PAL you will need to take a course and complete an exam. At which point your application is referred to the RCMP who will investigate you to determine if you have any criminal record or probations. You will need to seek permission from your spouse or guardians (if 16 or less years of age), supply character references. Quebec has Law 9 which is a far more invasive review (and possibly unconstitutional)

Once you have passed successfully through all stages of the review you become the proud holder of a PAL. Make careful note of the expiry date, if you let expire and have guns, you are now a criminal.


What is gun registration and does it work?



The first gun registry in Canada was invoked in 1934 and required you to register your handgun. This was to keep guns out of the hands of undesirables such as union members who were seen as potential communists. The current combined long gun and handgun registry created in 1998 and came into force in 2002 covers both long guns (rifles, shotguns) and handguns. The reason for the implementation of the long gun registry is unclear, proponents claim it helps them keep guns out of the hands of criminals, opponents of the registry claiming the real reason is the eventual confiscation of all firearms. I favour the latter theory as history shows us once the government know what, where and who has them, they will eventually come for them. The former theory is flawed as criminals don’t register guns and handgun crime is rising despite 77 years of a handgun registry. For more on the failures of the registry see my other blog “Epic failures of the gun registry”

How it works
Within the database firearms are identified by what is called a Firearm Reference Table (FRT) Number. Each model of gun known to be in Canada is given a FRT number, without out this number a gun can’t be registered, so if they “withdraw” the FRT number from the database, then the model of gun disappears and the clerks at the CFC can’t find it, convenient way to get rid of unwanted types of guns right?

If I go to a store and say I want to buy a Non-restricted Ruger 10/22 carbine, the store clerk takes my PAL, phones the CFC and requests that a Ruger 10/22 carbine Serial XXXXXX currently registered to the store, be transferred to myself, the CFC checks my record and sees that my PAL is valid and there are no prohibitions on my file. If so they then authorize the store to sell me the rifle, and give them a transfer number. I can then take the gun home, in a couple of weeks (in BC, the CFO office is fairly quick and the ladies are quite nice, Ontario and Quebec not so much) I will get a registration certificate in the mail. I must carry a copy of it with me when using/transporting the gun.
Now if I wanted to buy a restricted rifle or pistol, it gets more complicated, I select the gun and pay the money, the store calls the CFC, they start the transfer process, generally it will take a couple of days to a couple of weeks, when the transfer is complete I can pick up the gun and take home. I will need a Temporary “Authorization to Transport” (ATT), once I get the registration papers, I can then use my long term ATT to transport the gun (more on ATT’s later) anywhere that I am authorized. This process varies between Provinces.



What types of guns can you own?


My Dlask 10/22 target rifle

A non-restricted PAL will allow you to own any non-restricted rifle or shotgun, a restricted PAL will allow to own handguns and restricted firearms such as the AR-15. All handguns except for antiques are either restricted or Prohibited (either by barrel length or calibre). Rifles & shotguns are restricted either by barrel length or by name ( Such as the AR-15 and variants)
Prohibited firearms include pistols with a barrel length of less than 106mm, calibres of .25 & ,32cal. Rifles are generally prohibited by name (FAL, AK-47 and variants) Only individuals that are grandfathers or have certain special licences can posses these. If you let your PAL expire, before getting the new one, you will lose your grandfathered status. If you didn’t bother to convert to the PAL system from the FAC and you own one of these you are screwed.


A Degtyaryov's infantry machine gun (no you can't have one, it's prohibited)

Automatic firearms such as sub-machine guns, automatic rifles, pistols, light and medium machine guns are prohibited firearms, only a select few individuals are grandfathered for these and a number of businesses have licence to posses them, generally for the movie industry. To note I am not aware of any homicide ever committed with a registered automatic firearm. They are just to valuable and expensive.
Lastly antique guns such as early Webely MkII revolvers and old muskets are not considered firearms and do not require a PAL .

Replica guns are prohibited, but the law defining such has been murky, any device designed to look like a firearm that can shoot a projectile such as Airsoft guns are not replicas and are not banned. For more information go to Airsoft Canada.

More to come in “Coming out of the gun closest part III”

Older posts in this series
“Coming out of the gun closest part I”

Confiscation has always been a Liberal goal

Update
The NRA advises they have been aware of this document for a long time, they have never been able to verify it completely so they have not used it. So you can’t really include it yet with other Liberal underhanded undertakings like, Adscam, Gun registry costs, etc, etc. nevertheless I hold that the main thrust of the document is true and fits the activities of the Liberal connected politicians, police forces and the Canadian Firearms Officers.




The Liberals have claimed confiscation of firearms was never their goal, but this document released in a Freedom of Information request shows that it was exactly their intent Read the rest of this disgusting piece at the Don't tread on me blog.

In this country one can be charged and get a criminal record for not doing something.

A good letter in a local paper about the gun registry
Interesting statistics. (A look at who’s packing what, Oct. 15, 2010 South Delta Leader). But I sense another excuse for a long gun registry.

The reasons the long gun registry is opposed by so many are not obvious to readers of such articles. Registration is often confused with other sections of firearms law such as transportation, storage and licensing.

A registered firearm is generally owned by a hunter, collector or target shooter who is required to have a license and it is obvious that if the police can determine that a member of a given household holds as firearm license he or she likely owns a firearm.

The registry is redundant, especially if one considers the average criminal in possession of a firearm would be foolish to apply for a license and register a gun intended to be used in a crime. The argument that we register cars does not apply.

There is nothing in the criminal code that precludes me from removing the plates from my car and storing it in my garage. If my car were stolen from a locked garage I would be considered a victim, but if my properly stored gun were stolen there is a good chance the investigating officer would initially charge me with unsafe storage of a firearm and I could have a criminal record for the rest of my life.

In fact, if my firearms license were to expire prior to me filling out the renewal paperwork I would also be liable to charges under the criminal code and I am baffled by the fact in this country one can be charged and get a criminal record for not doing something.

Please, media people, do some research and tell the whole story.

Mike Young,

Delta

Epic failures of the gun Registry

The purpose of this blog is to track failures of the gun registry. Stories submitted must have happen to you personally or directly from someone you know. No “I heard from my uncles friends buddies” stories. We want to stay as factual as we can be within the restraints that we are working under.
I will submit my story first;
Waited till the last minute to register my .22cal rifle and .303 Enfield, both of which I had owned since I was 18 with no issue. Sent the papers by registered mail and got the receipt back. 2 years later I get a letter from the Canadian Firearms Centre (CFC) stating: “Due to missing information my file can not be completed and that if I don’t respond my file will be closed and I would be a criminal”. (not exact wording but close enough)
Phoned up the CFC to ask what information was missing, they replied……..
“We need your mailing address”
So I asked: “If you didn’t have that, how could you have sent me a letter?” Very long pause……..”Thank you we will complete your file now”

This is a true story on how I avoided being a criminal (so far)

More here at: Epic failures

The countdown has begun

Will the gun Registry be voted down today? I am not sure, I would like to believe that it will, but powerful forces are at work, the Liberals and NDP have pulled out all of the stops and people who have talked to NDP M.P.’s who have switched their votes were given the distinct impression that the Party leadership told them; “the vote is not whipped but you shall be whipped if you don’t vote the way we tell you”.

The Libs and NDP are spending a lot of political capital to stop this vote and that will likely come back to haunt them. A lot of gun registry supporters made a lot of claims, if the vote fails and this becomes an election issue you can bet those claims will be dissected and any flaws widely exposed, the blogosphere is merciless. If it fails the CPC can tell their supporters they did everything a minority government could do and the only way forward for gun owners is a CPC majority. So for the CPC it would mean more money, votes and volunteers.

The NDP has been forced to finally show it’s true colours, the old party is dead, the new party does not represent the average Canadian and that will be the price they pay at election time.

If by chance the vote goes through by some Lib suddenly “feeling ill” or a NDPer finds a backbone, then the work of dismantling the registry begins. It will need to be killed dead and stake driven through it’s heart so it may not rise again.

A criminal perspective on the long-gun registry

A criminal perspective on the long-gun registry
By Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenixSeptember 21, 2010
There is no point at this late stage rehashing the debate over the long-gun registry. Except for a few dithering New Democrats, the positions are clearly defined. We have heard from the politicians. We have heard from farmers and duck hunters and from law enforcement authorities. We have heard from the Starbucks crowd and the gopher derby crowd. They all are saying pretty much exactly what they said 15 years ago when the registry was created.

The only group we have not heard from, oddly enough, is the one group the registry is meant to control, namely criminals. The whole idea was to reduce violent crime, although the registry probably has done more to reduce hunting. Since it came into effect, the sale of hunting licences in Saskatchewan, for example, has dropped by about 25 per cent, while violent crime has declined not at all. If hunters were a species, they would qualify as endangered. Meanwhile, the criminal species is flourishing.

This might explain why we've heard no complaints from the criminal element about the long-gun registry. It doesn't seem to bother them. Or if it does bother them, they're not making a big deal of it. We can't be sure what they think because no one has asked.

For the criminal perspective on the registry, I tracked down Larry Lowlife, a serial violent offender who is between convictions and briefly out of jail. Here is the transcript of our interview:

SP: Before we talk about the long-gun registry, can you establish your credentials as a violent career criminal?

LL: Sure. (Produces a sawed-off shotgun from under his coat.) Stick 'em up

SP: (Nervous laugh) I'm convinced. Do you mind if I ask if your firearm is registered?

LL: Not to me, but it probably was registered by the previous owner. I stole it during a residential break-in.

SP: You stole it? Was the gun not secured under lock and key, as required by law?

LL: Sure, it was in a locked cabinet. The house was locked, too. Anything worth stealing is locked up. That's one of the first things we learn in crime school.

SP: I notice you have sawed off the barrel. Did you know that's illegal?

LL: That's why it was under my coat.

SP: Have you been following the national debate over the long-gun registry?

LL: Not really. It has nothing to do with me.

SP: But you could be convicted for having an unregistered firearm.

LL: Not if I agree to plead out on the armed robberies.

SP: What armed robberies?

LL: The ones where I use this gun.

SP: Are you saying the registry does not deter crime?

LL: I think I answered that earlier when I said, 'Stick 'em up.'

SP: Were you aware that the registry has cost taxpayers more than $2 billion?

LL: Two billion dollars? And they call me a criminal?

SP: So you think that's too expensive?

LL: Not at all. I wish it cost more.

SP: More?

LL: Well, we criminals don't pay taxes anyway, so the registry costs me, personally, nothing. I'm just glad that $2 billion isn't available to hire more cops to arrest guys like me.

SP: But a lot of police support the registry. They supposedly access it thousands of times every day.

LL: Good for them. When they come to arrest me, they'll check the registry and think I'm unarmed.

SP: Has the registry made it more difficult to obtain a gun for criminal purposes?

LL: Finding an illegal gun is easy. The tricky part is getting rid of it later.

SP: What message do you have for MPs who will vote this week to save or dismantle the long-gun registry?

LL: I'd tell them to put up their hands and give me their wallets and jewelry.

from: The Starphoenix

Police being paid to access the registry?

Is the Government paying for police to access the gun registry? Apparently an unidentified police officer has claimed that his department receives money every time they access the system. Hmmm very interesting, might have to ask pointed questions to some people and organizations. This is still a unconfirmed rumour at this point, you can see below a quote from a letter sent to a M.P. for clarification.



The second item which I would request clarification on is information I have received regarding the usage of the firearms registry. While I have no factual data regarding this, the source has been 100% reliable in the past.

I was told, that the ‘hits’ on the registry not only provide police with information but further are a source of revenue for these agencies.

It was explained to me, that the Liberal government of the day, created a fund which would financially reward policing agencies for accessing the database. As they were having serious difficulty getting cities and provinces to ‘buy into’ the registry, they would transfer funding to these agencies. My source believed the ‘hit funding’ was about $27.00 per call.

If in fact this is correct, it would go a long way to explaining the obsessive dedication that the Canadian Association of Chief’s of Police have for the database. It would also provide me with an explanation why the president of the association claims that the registry only costs 4 million per year (See posts below). I suspect that that is the funding the City of Toronto receives for utilizing the registry.

If the above is factual, the case could be made that the federal government is in fact paying the police to access the database. If this scenario was correct, it’s value as a crime fighting tool would seem to be less important than as a ‘off the books’ funding source.

RCMP statment of 2008-2009 costs for the gun registry

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/fire-feu-eval/eval-eng.pdf

The figures below are the ones released by the RCMP, you can bet they kept them as low as possible and it does not include any near term foreseeable costs such as computer upgrades or building upkeep. It's a not a very complete breakdown and I suspect other costs might have been transferred to other departments to reduce the total apparent cost.

It’s clear that the cost of the current registry operations is not the $4 million many supporters have claimed it was. 20 million may not sound like much, but it would pay for 200 more Police officers every year.

I will update if I get more information, thank you to EEJayde

A gang that couldn't shoot straight

This article is from 2003, sounds very familiar to the arguments being made today? The only thing that’s changed is the pressure from the Police Chiefs Association, they like the registry because they don’t have to pay for it, you can bet their tune will change if they have to pay for everyone of those “hits”! The author is one of the people responsible for the registry, so it’s likely that what he says is true or very close to it.

We now know that the government's gun-control policy is a fiscal and administrative debacle. Its costs rival those of core services like national defence. And it doesn't work. What is less well known is that the policy wasn't designed to control guns. It was designed to control Kim Campbell.

When Ms. Campbell was enjoying a brief season of success in her re-election bid in the summer campaign of 1993, Mr. Chrétien was kept busy reassuring what he called the "Nervous Nellies" in his caucus that Ms. Campbell's star would soon fall. To bring her down, the Liberals planned to discredit her key accomplishment as minister of justice, an ambitious gun-control package.

Those measures -- enacted in the wake of the Montreal Massacre -- included new requirements for the training and certification of target shooters and hunters. We got new laws requiring: the safe storage of firearms and ammunition, which essentially brought every gun in the country under lock and key; screening of applicants for firearms licences; courts to actively seek information about firearms in spousal assault cases; the prohibition of firearms that had no place in Canada's field-and-stream tradition of firearms use.

I was one of the department of justice officials involved in that earlier gun-control program. When the House of Commons passed the legislation, Wendy Cukier and Heidi Rathgen of the Coalition for Gun Control, which had been part of the consultation process, supplied the champagne for a party at my Ottawa home.

So what were the Liberals to do, faced with a legislative accomplishment on this scale?

Simple: Pretend it hadn't happened, and promise to do something so dramatic that it would make Ms. Campbell look soft on gun control. The obvious policy choice was a universal firearms registry.

The idea of requiring the registration of every firearm in the country wasn't new. Governments love lists. Getting lists and maintaining them is a visible sign that the government is at work. And lists are the indispensable first step to collecting taxes and licence fees. There is no constitutional right to bear arms in Canada, as is arguably the case in the United States.

So why not go for a universal gun registry? The short answer, arrived at by every study in the Department of Justice, was that universal registration would be ruinously expensive, and could actually yield a negative public security result (more on this in a moment). Besides, in 1992 Canada already had two systems of gun registration: the complete registry of all restricted firearms, such as handguns (restricted since the 1930s) and a separate registry of ordinary firearms.

This latter registry, which started in the early 1970s, was a feature of the firearms acquisition certificate (or FAC) required by a person purchasing any firearm. Every firearm purchased from a dealer had to be registered to the FAC holder by the vendor, and the record of the purchase passed on to the RCMP in Ottawa. So we were already building a cumulative registry of all the owners of guns in Canada purchased since 1970.

The FAC system was a very Canadian (i.e. sensible) approach to the registration of ordinary hunting and target firearms. If you were a good ol' boy from Camrose, Alta., and didn't want to get involved, you didn't have to -- as long as you didn't buy more guns. Good ol' boys die off, so younger people in shooting sports would eventually all be enrolled in the system.

After the Montreal Massacre, the then-deputy minister of justice, John Tait, asked me to review the gun-control package under development. One thing I immediately wanted to know was how many Canadians owned Ruger Mini-14s (the gun used by the Montreal murderer). The Mini-14 came into production about the time the FAC system was introduced, so the FAC should have a good picture of the gun's distribution.

But when our team asked the RCMP for the information, we couldn't get it. Computers were down; the information hadn't been entered yet; there weren't enough staff to process the request; there was a full moon. After a week, I said I didn't want excuses, I wanted the records. Then a very senior person sat me down and told me the truth.

The RCMP had stopped accepting FAC records, and had actually destroyed those it already had. The FAC registry system didn't exist because the police thought it was useless and refused to waste their limited budgets maintaining it. They also moved to ensure that their political masters could not resurrect it.
Such spectacular bureaucratic vandalism persuaded my deputy and his minister to concentrate on developing compliance with affordable gun-control measures that could work. A universal gun registry could only appeal to people who didn't care about costs or results, and who didn't understand what riled up decent folks in Camrose.

Which is precisely why it appealed to those putting together the Liberal Red Book for the pivotal 1993 election. If the object of the policy exercise was to appear to be "tougher" on guns than Kim Campbell, they had to find a policy that would provoke legitimate gun-owners to outrage. Nothing would better convince the Liberals' urban constituency that Jean Chrétien and Allan Rock were taking a tough line on guns than the spectacle of angry old men spouting fury on Parliament Hill.

The supreme irony of the gun registry battle is that the policy was selected because it would goad people who knew something about guns to public outrage. That is, it had a purely political purpose in the special context of a hard-fought election. The fact that it was bad policy was crucial to the specific political effect it was supposed to deliver.

And so we saw demonstrations by middle-aged firearm owners, family men whose first reflex was to respect the laws of the land. This group's political alienation is a far greater loss than the $200-million that have been wasted so far. The creation of this new criminal class -- the ultimate triumph of negative political alchemy -- may be the worst, and most enduring product of the gun registry culture war.
John Dixon is a hunter, and president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. From 1991 to 1992, he was adviser to then-deputy minister of justice John Tait.

From: http://www.lowe.ca/Rick/FirearmsLegislation/AGangThatCouldn'tShootStraight.html

An open letter to the President of PSAC

Yesterday I found out that my union is urging it’s members to send form letters to Jack Layton of the NDP to whip his M.P. into voting against bill C-391 to kill the gun registry. It is traditional in Canada for votes on a Private Members Bill not to be whipped. Seems the union does not like Jack’s plan to let his M.P.’s vote whatever their constituents wish. Frankly I don’t think Jack is doing this out of democratic principles, but out of political survival. Many of his rural seats are being held by a slim margin, voting to support the registry could seriously harm the NDP.
What really pisses me off is that the Union involves itself in non-labour related issues, under the guise of “social justice” The union never bothers to ask their members to vote on this sort of thing and decides to whatever it pleases. Clearly a case of some being “More equal than others”. Had they bothered to canvas their members they would find that a significant portion of them are gun owner who are opposed to the gun registry. So I sent this letter last night to the President of PSAC in a likely vain attempt to make them listen. If you belong to this union and are opposed to the registry, you need to make yourself heard!



I have been a member of PSAC since the early 90’s. I find your involvement in supporting the gun registry quite disgusting and have to ask how is this pertinent to your duties as a Labour union?

Many members of PSAC own guns and are avid shooters, why would you support a program that is used to seize and confiscate peoples property? Also are you aware that the program sucked up nearly 2 billion dollars that was badly needed in far more important programs. While this money sucking monster was been created, my Search and Rescue vessel was tied to the dock due to lack of fuel and training was cut.

I have seen lots of claims made by the people supporting the registry all of which fail the fact test.

Suicides: The registry has not affected total suicides and recent claims that it have using a study that covered 1995-2005 are totally hogwash, the registry started in 2003 and was barely working by 2005. The trends in suicides have not changed due to the registry.

Police use: The gun registry is not well received by the average police officers, a recent survey found that 92% of responding street level officer did not use it or trust. Their mistrust is well-founded, only about 33% of the legal guns made or imported into Canada have ever been registered, plus it has no effect on guns that were smuggled in. Only the police chiefs seem to like it, but not enough to offer to pay for it out of their budgets. Not to mention the Police chief association accepts donations from the company that built the registry and the same Police Association was also against the Charter of rights and recently had their ethics advisor quit in disgust.

Cost: The Liberals claimed it was only going to cost 200 million, well approx. 2 billion later we still have a white elephant that has only registered approx. 33% of the legal guns, plus it has re-registered guns that had been reported stolen and is so poorly maintained that even firearm experts have difficulty matching certificates to guns (Most guns up to the 1960’s did not have serial numbers) Currently supporters are claiming it only costs 4 million, yet strangely enough even the RCMP admit to salary costs at 13 million, with a total of around $86 million per year, which most people suspect is on the low side.

Use: supporters like to use figures showing how much the registry is used, these claims started out around 4,000 and now claiming 17,000 times a day the registry is checked. What they don’t say is that all but a tiny fraction are automated, so if you are pulled over for speeding, and they run you through their system, you have just become a statistic for the gun registry supporters. In reality the number of times in a day the system is checked directly is about 19 times. If it was 17,000 times daily that would mean 6,205,000 registry checks, there are 1.9 licensed million gun owners in Canada.

The original authors of the registry have said publicly many times, that it was part of their plan to eliminate gun ownership in Canada that is the only real purpose of the registry and every example in history bears this out. A registry is created with the claim it is for the public good, shortly afterwards, those law abiding citizens that complied have their gun seized.
Do you also know that the original purpose of the gun control laws of the 20’s and the 1934 handgun registry was to ensure the “wrong type” of people don’t have access to firearms. Those “wrong people” were Communist, Socialists and Union members. So I ask you again why are you supporting a program, that does not work, costs far more than it ever should and turns law abiding citizens into criminals. Currently the firearm laws in Canada has made appox. 2 million otherwise lawabiding citizens into criminals, all for the failure to have a piece of paper.

I will be writing Jack Layton and telling him that your campaign does not speak for PSAC or for me and tell him as a proud gun owner to let his MP vote freely as they should in a democracy.

If cars were regulated like firearms

If cars were regulated like firearms, the following would be true:

* All classic sports cars, subcompact cars or cars capable of operating in excess of 120 km/h would be prohibited. Cars that look like they are capable of exceeding 120 km/h would also be prohibited by adding them to the list of prohibited vehicles. Persons owning such cars prior to the enactment of the "Automobile Act" would be allowed to keep them. But they would not be allowed to drive them on roads. They would require a "special authority to drive" to take them to a provincially certified track to drive. The government, by virtue of a legislative screw-up, would never be permitted to grant the special authority.

* All coupes, by virtue of being two-doors, would be banned from driving on roads and would be restricted to use of provincially regulated tracks. To take your two-door car to the track would require an authorization to transport to the track. You would have to take a designated route to the track. If you deviate from the route, you could face serious criminal charges.

* If you own a car, you would have to store it in a locked garage. If you do not own a locked garage, you would have to drain the fuel tank after arriving home, and lock the doors. You would have to store the gasoline separately from the car, and in a safe manner. You would also have to follow this regimen if you parked at the mall or at work. Failure to adhere to this could result in serious criminal charges.

* Failing to get a sticker every year on time would result in serious criminal charges (instead of a fine or a suspended ticket).

* Any infraction of the Highway Traffic Act would be a serious criminal offence.

* To get your license you would, in addition to passing a safe-driving course and exams, provide three references who would vouch for your ability to drive. You would have to get approval from all your sexual partners who have stayed in your home, as well as any former employers.

* Upon receiving your license, you will be allowed to purchase a car, but not on a Sunday, and sales between individuals, as opposed to businesses, cannot occur on the weekend.

* If you do not receive your license renewal on time, police will show up at your door to demand that you turn over your car for destruction. You could also face serious criminal charges.

* If you argue with your spouse, or are going through a divorce, and your spouse makes any claim of criminal action, police will seize your car and destroy it.

* If you are convicted of any criminal offence -- even putting a penny on a railroad track (Section 456) or having a poker night (Section 201) -- your car would be seized and destroyed.

* If you violate any of the regulations listed above or committed any criminal offence, you would have all your cars seized and destroyed, and you would be prohibited from owning a car for 10 years.

Every time there was a serious accident or a hit and run, grandstanding and shamelessly uninformed politicians would demonize car owners as dangerous, wife-abusing rednecks who cannot be trusted, and call for a total car ban.

If it saves even one life, it's worth it, right?

Written by Paul Morrison

Myprecious.......

I couldn’t have said it better myself, despite all the evidence that the registry does not work, the Liberals cling to it like a magic Talisman. To be honest the Liberal party as a whole reminds me of Gollum.

Picture courtesy of “Don’t tread on me”

Officer's survey finds 92% of police want gun registry scrapped

A police officer used an online survey open only to police officers to gauge their feelings on the gun registry. 92% of the officers polled (the type that go into the field and take the risks) rejected the gun registry as a waste of time. Read the rest below;

Constable Randy Kuntz, a 22-year veteran with Edmonton Police Services (EPS), says the survey he conducted last year should be embraced by M.P.s when they vote on Bill C-391 that advocates dispatching the registry. Kuntz, an Exemplary Service Medal recipient, hopes to expose the grave mistake that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) is making by supporting the registry.

"The CACP is not some mindless group of misguided men and women who strive to oppress," says Kuntz. "There are many things they do very well as a unit. They simply have this one matter very wrong. The idea that the firearms registry is necessary and useful is wrong. They claim that they speak for all police officers on this matter. I think I have shown that they don't."

Kuntz used a popular police magazine to query officers across Canada if they supported the registry as a useful working tool. While he is first to admit the survey is not scientific, he believes it closely reflects the current climate among his fellow officers.

He expected a couple of hundred replies, but of the 2,631 officers who responded from every province and territory, 2,410 said the registry is useless as a crime fighting tool and many believe it poses a danger to police.

"The firearms database shows registered firearms and their owners," explains Kuntz. "No telling where those firearms are actually located, it just shows the law abiding citizen who owns legal firearms. There is nothing that says the firearms have to be in the possession of the person to whom they are registered. I can loan a firearm to anyone who possesses a valid license for that type of firearm.

"A person can have a valid possession/acquisition license, but not have any registered firearms in his name," he adds. "So, no firearms are on the database associated to his address. But, he can borrow a firearm and have it in his possession. What good is the registry, then? In the above example, the police officer checks the person and sees he has no firearms registered to him – so does the policeman think there are no firearms? Probably. It's a huge mistake on the police officer's part, relying on a database for your safety. It's ridiculous."

Kuntz conducted the survey on his own because he was very concerned that officers could be killed if they relied on the registry data. He also believes the CACP is misrepresenting the facts by continually claiming that a massive majority of police officers support the registry. There is often a gulf between management and employee interests in any organization and police work is no different.

"The CACP tells the public that it is a necessary tool for law enforcement," says Kuntz. "It is not. It just gives the perception of that. It was pretty overwhelming that those who responded (to the survey) were against the registry. Most of the respondents were constables and sergeants/detectives – guys and gals with their boots on the pavement, so to speak. They're the cops that the public meets and deals with on a daily basis. I respect Chief Rick Hanson of Calgary Police Services. He took a stand against the CACP's position on the registry. It takes a lot of guts to face others of equal rank and say, ‘you are wrong.'"

While Kuntz suspects the CACP isn't deliberately trying to deceive the public, he hopes his survey results will send the chiefs and M.P.s an important message. M.P.s are voting on September 22 on an opposition-led motion that is poised to kill Bill C-391 even before it gets to the 3rd reading stage. Many pundits predict that the vote could be very close.

"I believe that the CACP believes they are looking out for us," he explains. "That's the scary part. The registry was touted as a public safety program. The problem is, the registry does nothing to improve anyone's safety and it has cost the Canadian public two billion dollars, plus millions per year to maintain. If such a wasteful program was proposed in the private sector, it would have never got off the ground in the first place."

During debates on Bill C-391, some police services members told the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security that police were being warned by superiors against speaking publicly against the registry. Meanwhile, Kuntz's fellow officers have cautioned him that his stance is likely to have a career-limiting effect. During his 22 years as a police officer, he has worked in the Intelligence Analysis Unit, Cold Case Homicide, Integrated Intelligence Unit with EPS and RCMP, Criminal Investigation Section, Driver Training, and he has been acting Detective/Sergeant.

"I have had an excellent career thus far in the rank of Constable," he says. "I made it clear to our Human Resources recently that I would not be participating in any future promotion processes. Some things are more important than my personal ambitions. This is one of them. It is something that affects all Canadians as it is our money funding this wasteful program."

He also provides some sage advice for new recruits: "If you rely on a computer database for your safety, you are an idiot. Learn to investigate using your observation and communication skills. We were pretty successful in doing that for 100 years prior to the registry."
via CSSA

We can't fight casino money laundering says RCMP

Well maybe if the government had spent some of the 2 billion used for the firearms registry to build up a high tech crime branch then yes they could tackle this area. It was made clear to the governments that the casino’s were going to be the best place to launder money for organized crime, but the lure or jobs and easy tax money won out. The fact that they didn’t do anything to deal with this threat that they knew was coming just shows how short sighted and warped senior levels of government and the RCMP are.
You can read more here on the whining of why they can’t do what they are supposed to be doing.