The Liberals need to make the case

The Liberals decision to whip the gun registry vote was a step in the right direction, but people should not get too excited.

The Liberals still seem to believe that by sounding serious, flexible and sympathetic they will have a chance to win the next election. They are dreaming. A lot of the success Conservatives have enjoyed stems from the fact that however, stupid their arguments and policies, they are the only ones willing to put forward some. When pundits talk about policy or arguments used to buttress it; they deal with Conservative policies and arguments. The Liberals give them nothing to talk about. The Liberals have abandoned the field altogether; they do not put forward polices; they do not put forward arguments; they do not refute arguments. They might tut tut and promise to "compromise", but this only hurts them. The former makes them appear to be the effeminate wimps the Conservatives claim them to be and the later makes it appear that the various Conservative arguments polices have some validity when in actuality they have none. At best, the Liberals will sometimes take a stand in defense of the status quo. The aforementioned gun registry is a case in point. However, do not expect them to say much of anything when they do take a stand. They might note that the experts support them, but they will not repeat the expert's arguments least someone take offense to what the experts are saying and want to shoot the messenger.

Some Anti Gun registry arguments and how to handle them

"More people nationwide are for abolishing the registry than keeping it "

The most recent Decima poll put it at 48 38 in favour of keeping it.

"it has already been proven that the gov't can't enforce the registry."

Sure it can. It has a hard time getting everyone to register guns that predate the registry. However, they have no problem getting people to register new guns.

As for the issue of non compliance, tax evasion, drunk driving and speeding are common place, but that is no cause for getting rid of those laws.

"Koby, you think a winning talking point is:
the LGR will catch Canadian farmers, duck hunters who have not yet, but will, get a criminal record...?"

There are 1.8 million registered gun owners. It does not take a great leap of faith to believe that some will have a criminal record in 10 years time. It is certainly not beyond the grasp of your average Canadian. Of course what makes it especially easy sell is the ability to trot out more than decade's worth of stats showing just how many gun owning "farmers and duck hunters" have been convicted of crime.

"We all support the licensing of people who own firearms and the registration of prohibited or restricted weapons (such as handguns). That's not going to change; this Conservative government is unwavering in that. We know full well that criminals don't register their guns and that's what makes the long gun registry wasteful and ineffective,"

http://www.nsnews.com/news/Chief+Const+Lepine+Save+registry/3539157/story.html

Criminals can not register their guns. Being able to register a gun presupposes that one has a Possession and Acquisition Licence and a criminal record is grounds for being denied a PAL and for a PAL being revoked.

Semantics aside, this argument does not make much sense. Car thieves can not register their ill gotten goods with ICBC either, but I do see anyone giving this as a reason for not having to register cars. To make matters worse for supporters, it nearly impossible to on the one hand support registering hand guns and on the other hand demand that long guns no longer be registered. After all, the reason given for the latter position is that criminals do not register their guns period. Either one supports both or neither.

"Forget about those gangs, the Hell's Angles and your common bank robbers Canadians,
it's them there farmers that MIGHT go rambo that is scaring the h out of our town folk,"

1) 83% are homicides are not gang related. That said, as it allows guns to be traced back to their last legal owner, the registry makes illegal sales and straw purchases more difficult and so helps keep "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers" honest. "Studies have shown that in the US, states with both licensing and registration (versus one or the other) had fewer guns diverted from legal to illegal markets." http://www.aspq.org/DL/Declarationang.pdf

2) There are far more gun incidents in rural Canada than in urban Canada.

3) As far as your average law abiding citizen is concerned, they are infinitely more likely be killed by a loved one than by a gang.

4) The cops get calls by mental health professionals worried about a patient going "rambo" all the time.

West Vancouver police Chief: "We get calls from mental-health providers saying 'We're concerned about a particular individual.' We'll do that check and go and seize (their firearms) so they don't harm themselves or someone else."

Psychiatrist Barbara Kane: “I think we've probably prevented some major events,” says Dr. Barbara Kane, a psychiatrist in Prince George, B.C. The RCMP has called Kane asking whether she is concerned about certain individuals applying to register a gun. She believes such a call prevented tragedy after a millworker was fired. “He could easily have gone into one of the mills and done something bad,” she says. “But we were able to get his guns away from him.”

Liberals gun registry talking point sucks

The Liberals unwillingness to move past the tentative talking point about the gun registry being accessed x number of times every day has hurt them.

They would be in lot stronger position had they admitted the obvious. Namely, Gary Breitkreuz is right. The gun registry is, first and foremost a tool for seizing guns from people. What Breitkreuz gets wrong, and what the Liberals should gleefully point out, is that there have been thousands of "Canadian farmers, duck hunters", who acquired a criminal record over the last 12 years and given the huge number of gun owners, one can safely say that over the next 12 years there will be thousands more. Abolishing the "long gun registry" would make it easier for some criminals to keep their guns.

Of course, there is no reason to stop there. One of the main Conservative talking points is the following. "We know full well that criminals don't register their guns and that's what makes the long gun registry wasteful and ineffective," Now it is not so much that criminals do not register their guns and they can not register their guns. Semantics aside though, this talking point does not make much sense. Car thieves can not register their ill gotten goods with an auto insurer either, but I do see anyone giving this as a reason for not having to register cars. To make matters worse, it nearly impossible for the Conservatives to on the one hand throw their support behind registering hand guns and on the other hand demand that long guns no longer be registered. After all, the reason they give for the latter is that criminals do not register their guns period. The Conservatives can not have their cake and eat it too.

John Weston's embarrassing gun registry comments

John Weston:

"We all support the licensing of people who own firearms and the registration of prohibited or restricted weapons (such as handguns). That's not going to change; this Conservative government is unwavering in that. We know full well that criminals don't register their guns and that's what makes the long gun registry wasteful and ineffective,"

http://www.nsnews.com/news/Chief+Const+Lepine+Save+registry/3539157/story.html

Criminals can not register their guns. Being able to register a gun presupposes that one has a Possession and Acquisition Licence and a criminal record is grounds for being denied a PAL and for a PAL being revoked. However, this does not mean that some criminals do not try to register their guns. "More than 1,500 Canadians were refused licences for their guns from 2006-2009, on the basis of background checks triggered when they went to register the weapons." The most common reason for denying these gun owners a license was that they were a risk to others. "The program revoked another 6,093 licences in the same period as a result of continuous screening, court orders and complaints to its public safety line. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/gunregistry/article/863178--why-gun-control-is-really-a-gender-issue?bn=1

Semantics aside, Weston's argument does not make much sense. Car thieves can not register their ill gotten goods with ICBC either, but I do see anyone giving this as a reason for not having to register cars. To make matters worse for Weston, it nearly impossible for him to on the one hand throw his support behind registering "prohibited or restricted weapons (such as handguns)" and on the other hand demand that long guns no longer be registered. After all, the reason he gives for the latter is that criminals do not register their long guns as well as their prohibited and restricted weapons. Weston can not have his cake and eat it too.

Weston:

"This is a big distraction. It has been politicized. There is an unfortunate need for the Liberals to defend their waste of the $2 billion by continually coming up with justifications.

The Conservatives like to hammer the Liberals over the cost of the gun registry and rightly so. That said, the gun registry's 1 billion dollar price tag does not have any baring on whether long guns should be registered. What matters is whether the annual cost (between 1.5 and 4 million dollars) of registering long guns is worth it. Implying that the initial cost over runs justify dumping any part of the gun registry now is akin to saying the gazebo in Tony Clement's riding should be blown up because the Conservatives spent 1.3 Billion on a three day conference . http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/liberal-staffer-accuses-tories-of-trying-to-discredit-auditor-general/article1667099/ It makes no sense.

Now as for the justifications the Liberals have given for continuing to register long guns, other than to point out that the fact that the gun registry is used x number of times each day by the police, the Liberals have said remarkably little about the gun registry over the years. Their refusal to say much more has hurt them. They would have been in much better place had the continually come up with justifications.

Moving on, it is rich of Weston to imply that the Liberals have politicized the issue more than other parties. Not only have the Liberals not continually come up with justifications, they have spent a fraction of the Conservatives have on the issue. The Conservatives have spent money on radio ads and billboards. The Liberals have not.


Weston:

"This is a big distraction. It has been politicized. There is an unfortunate need for the Liberals to defend their waste of the $2 billion by continually coming up with justifications.
There's an Angus Reid poll that says 72 per cent of Canadians want the registry scrapped. There was a nationwide survey of rank-and-file police officers that said 92 per cent of them thought the registry was ineffective."

In 2006 Conservative candidate form Ajax Pickering famously said “The facts don’t matter.” I see John Weston is of the same mindset.

The auditor general put the cost of the gun registry at just under 1 billion, no Angus Reid poll ever showed those numbers and and this so called nationwide survey of rank and file police officers was chat room poll and so was no more scientific than Ted White's many "polls". My hat goes off to the North shore News for pointing this out.

"Setting up the registry ran notoriously over budget, reaching nearly $1 billion, according to the federal auditor general."

"In fact, the Aug. 24 Angus Reid poll of 1,005 Canadians reported that 44 per cent favoured scrapping the registry, with 35 per cent opposed and 21 per cent unsure. The police survey was an unscientific online poll conducted by an Edmonton officer on a police chat forum. The forum's operator later disavowed the survey, calling the results "mixed and inconclusive."

http://www.nsnews.com/news/Chief+Const+Lepine+Save+registry/3539157/story.html

By the way, this is what the most recent poll shows.

"Overall, 48 per cent of those surveyed believe it's a bad idea to abolish the registry, with 38 per cent supporting its abolition. (Harris/Decima interviewed just over 1000 Canadians. A sample of this size has a margin of error of 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.)"

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/gunregistry/article/863178--why-gun-control-is-really-a-gender-issue?bn=1

John Weston:

"The answer remains that we don't have any documented cases -- that I know of -- where the registry has performed its avowed purpose," he said. "In each case, if you look closely the registry would not have saved the victim. It's not doing its job. All it's doing is intruding on the liberties of Canadian farmers, duck hunters, and other law-abiding gun owners."

The gun registry is, first and foremost a tool for seizing guns from people who should no longer have them. I doubt even Weston would deny that it makes the seizure of guns easier. This was the thrust of what West Vancouver police chief Lepine said.

"Having a detailed inventory of the 4,029 registered firearms in West Vancouver helps police with court-ordered seizures of weapons from convicted offenders, said Lepine. If legally held weapons are stolen and eventually surface somewhere in the criminal economy, the registry records give officers a place to start in their investigation, he said.

"The next one is public safety. We get calls from mental-health providers saying 'We're concerned about a particular individual.' We'll do that check and go and seize (their firearms) so they don't harm themselves or someone else."

http://www.nsnews.com/news/Chief+Const+Lepine+Save+registry/3539157/story.html

The problem is that Weston refuses to acknowledge that sometimes legally registered weapons need to be seized because the owner has, for example, been convicted of a crime. In this he is not alone; I have yet to hear a Conservative acknowledge that there have been thousands of "Canadian farmers, duck hunters", who acquired a criminal record over the last 12 years and over the next 12 years there will be thousands more.

As for specific examples, Weston must not have looked very hard.

“I think we've probably prevented some major events,” says Dr. Barbara Kane, a psychiatrist in Prince George, B.C. The RCMP has called Kane asking whether she is concerned about certain individuals applying to register a gun. She believes such a call prevented tragedy after a millworker was fired.

“He could easily have gone into one of the mills and done something bad,” she says. “But we were able to get his guns away from him.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/gunregistry/article/863178--why-gun-control-is-really-a-gender-issue?bn=1

Liberal messaging and the media

For years the Liberals have assumed that they can talk directly to the public. They are wrong. First all of all, the Liberals are not in government and so much of what they have to say is not newsworthy. Secondly, most of what the Liberals say is such thin stuff it is lucky they get any news coverage at all. The Liberals are boring. Not only is the party not coming up with interesting policy proposals, but the Liberals stubbornly refuse to talk about any issue intelligently least they offend someone. This holds true even for issues they do support. Take the gun registry. Beyond pointing to the fact that police forces around the country access the gun registry x number of times every day, the Liberals have not said a thing.

Another mistake the Liberals have made is they have been slow to realize one does not need to be on the right side of public opinion to make political gains. The public often do not care deeply about this or that issue. What is important in these cases is that parties speak intelligently about the issue. After all, being on the right side of public opinion in these cases does not have much upside. Worse, if the talking points are badly crafted, stating a popular opinion badly may actually hurt a party. Such was the case with the census. The decision to dump the voluntary long form was popular enough, but Conservative talking points were so asinine they became media fodder and punchline to various jokes.

Yet another mistake the Liberals make is that they do not spend nearly enough time poking holes in their opponents arguments. To expand on what was said above with regard to the census, the Liberals spent virtually all of their time talking about how various interest groups make use of the census. Given the fun the media were having with Tony Clement and the fact some Conservatives were saying that denying funding to special interests was exactly the point, the Liberal approach was utterly misconceived. Never mind giving credence to a Conservative talking point. Tony Clement was digging a big hole for himself and Liberals should have been gathered around and pissing in it. A good reductio ad absurdum is one of the most deadly weapons in an opposition's MPs arsenal. The Liberals do not seem to realize this.

Finally, the Liberals need to realize that not much of their message reaches the public unfiltered and much of what the public knows about the issues the Liberals care about is what they pundits have to say about them. Least they continue to give various conservative pundits free reign, something that they have done since Trudeau stepped down, the Liberals have to go to the trouble of putting out detailed arguments. These arguments might never reach the public, but the pundits will have to deal with them and what the pundits say does reach the public.

Carney wrong to Raise Interest Rates

Declining GDP numbers Check
Talk of Double dip recession Check
Talk of further US Job losses Check
Canadian personal debt levels out of control Check
Talk of a housing bubble Check


There was no reason for Carney to raise interest rates.

Raising interest rates means the Canadian dollar will go up against the US dollar. Thus making are exports less competitive at time of low demand in the States. It also ultimately increases people's mortgage payments. Carney is right to be worried about Canadians being overstretched and burdened by the high cost of housing. However, demand for housing is way off last years pace. In other words, there is no housing market to cool off. Worse, raising interest rates now will only send more people over the edge and so could burst and already deflating bubble. Housing bubbles are a bad thing. Bursting a housing bubble, as opposed to slowly letting it deflate, is much much worse though.

Putting pressure on Harper to increase the requirements for taking out a mortgage is a far more effective way of preventing Canadians form taking on too much mortgage debt than increasing borrowing costs for everyone and increasing the interest charges on existing mortgages.

The pundits, the gun registry and "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers"

What separates a good pundit from a bad one is 1) the ability to unpack and critique political talking points, 2) a willingness to step back from politics and assess an issue honestly and 3) an abhorrence of political boiler plate. Pundits are not extensions of political parties -- or least they should not be.

This summer Canada's pundits have done a pretty good job. They ruthlessly mocked the Conservatives census talking points and did not pay much heed to the Liberals had to say on the subject. The Liberals deserved to be ignored and the Conservatives laughed at.

Enter the "long gun registry". The long time Liberal talking point about the gun registry being used by police x time of times a day is pretty thin gruel and the pundits have long be right to ask where is the beef. That said, this is no reason to leave the various Conservatives talking points virtually untouched and that is exactly what has happened over the years. For starters there is no reason for letting the Conservatives talk about a "long gun registry". There is but one registry -- a gun registry.

More substantively, consider the following talking point.

Stephen Harper:

"Canadians have been very clear. They want us to spend our time and our money focusing on the criminal misuse of firearms and not going after law-abiding duck hunters and farmers."

http://www.nationalpost.com/Police+chiefs+endorse+registry+over+Tories+plan/3435694/story.html#ixzz0ytLV3cVbOf


Pundits have rightly noted that while it costs around 3 million a year to register long guns, had the Conservatives continued to collect monies for these guns (about 15 million annually), then there would be no cost to tax paper whatsoever. They have also noted despite the gun registry's 1 billion dollar price tag, saying these cost overruns justify dumping any part of the gun registry now is akin to saying the gazebo in Tony Clement's riding should be blown up because the Conservatives spent 1.3 Billion on a three day conference . http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/liberal-staffer-accuses-tories-of-trying-to-discredit-auditor-general/article1667099/ It makes no sense.

However to leave at that is not enough. After all, the number of legal gun owners in Canada, is huge (just over 2 million) and as with any large population certain predictions can be made about their future behavior. One thing we can know for sure is that a sizable number of "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers" in absolute terms will be convicted of a crime sometime in the future and that an equal or greater number will develop a mental disorder that will render them unsuitable for gun ownership.

Between 1999 and 2008 22,523 licenses refused or revoked. By having "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers" register their firearms, authorities can ensure that guns, owned by "duck hunters and farmers" who are no longer fit to own a gun, are properly disposed of. A gun license only indicates that person has the right to own a firearm. It does not tell the cops whether someone actually owns a gun or how many guns they might have. In sum, the gun registry helps keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Indeed between November 2008 and April 2009, the police seized about 3600 registered guns. Based on their rhetoric, the registry is therefore something Conservatives should support not oppose.

Furthermore, as it allows guns to be traced back to their last legal owner, the registry makes illegal sales and straw purchases more difficult and so helps keep "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers" honest. "Studies have shown that in the US, states with both licensing and registration (versus one or the other) had fewer guns diverted from legal to illegal markets."

http://www.aspq.org/DL/Declarationang.pdf

Finally, the pundits can no longer be so concerned with only what the political parties have to say on the subject and so miss the guy in gorilla suit. http://www.livescience.com/health/invisible-gorilla-basketball-video-inattentiveness-100712.html Suicide is at the center of the academic debate about gun control and one can not ignore it and still remain credible. A significant number of "law-abiding duck hunters and farmers" and their family members in absolute terms use long guns to commit suicide.