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.
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Handguns in Canada have been restricted ever since Christ was a cowboy. I can't see the Conservatives or any party ever backing handguns.
Good post otherwise.
"Handguns in Canada have been restricted ever since Christ was a cowboy."
My point. The Conservatives are not going to call for the "hand gun registry" to be abolished. However, given what they have said about long guns, they should be.
Guns are guns. The FRACTION of our population that actually need long guns for daily survival can bloody well pony up the bucks to register the damn things. Time to move on. Canada hasn't existed inside a W.O. Mitchell novel in 60 years.
Koby? You're a fraud and we know it.
Thanks Anonymous.
I was wondering what the Toronto elite thought about this.
Elite? The VAST majority of Canadians live in urban centres. Your "Anne of Green Gables" fantasy world is long gone.
WE WANT EVERY GUN IN THE LAND REGISTERED!
Fuck you and your duck hunting. The truth is, the vast majority of twits that rage about gun registry spend more time playing Wii than actually hunting.
You want fresh duck? Register your rifles!
Sucks to be you.
Almost a billion wasted on this and only half of Canada's long guns are in the system. Laws of diminishing returns says it's going to cost a whole lot more to get the rest of them registered. The Toronto "safe city program" proved that the registry is all about confiscation, not regulation. My bet is a whole lot of people will be burying them rather than registering them.
The worst part is, with all the money spent, they could have built an even better system if they just talked to the gun owners rather than trying to impose a system on them. The FAC/PAL system was pretty good and was accepted by gun owners already.
''WE WANT EVERY GUN IN THE LAND REGISTERED!''
It's been 13 years, and so far, only 49% of long guns have been registered.
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...?
Yah, that's a winner for sure.
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,
we meed a list,
like McCarthy, a just in case list.
Koby, you missed the lame Liberal talking point that the LGR only cost $4 million.
That's the federal cost, but when you add in the Provincial cost,
you get a wasted
$105 million.
Which is why there are already 3 Prov Attorney's General that have said NO to agreeing with the LibDip proposed changes to the criminality factor of the LGR.
Alberta took the Chretien govt to court over the LGR,
on the basis it was NOT fed, but provincial jurisdiction.
Courts ruled that 'because' of the offence being punishable by a criminal code, feds could impose the law.
You take out the criminal punishment,
feds lose jurisdiction.
Wilson how do you know only 49% have been registered? As of Jun 2010 there are 6,829,885 non-restricted firearms registered.
So you're saying 50 percent of long guns are not registered; that would be a lot of fire power; approx 7 million long guns in the hands of criminals such as the Hells Angels and street gangs.
As you probably know anyone who doesn’t have their long guns registered or in the process of having their long guns registered are breaking the law according to the Firearm Act. You are for the law and order party aren’t you?
acridrain's an idiot: don't feed the troll. And it's total BS that only half the long guns are registered. And the billion wasn't for the registry, but for the whole Firearms Program (licensing, screening, training, enforcing) which is all going to CONTINUE.
But here's some fun ACTUAL facts (some from the RCMP & CFC, some from Breitkreuz' own site):
- over a million guns were taken out of circulation the first 6 yrs. cuz of Bill C-68 when people turned them in for export or destruction rather than register them;
- about 30% of the relatively few people the police accuse of homicide each year had a valid firearms license at the time;
- the police revoked about 1,000 licenses a yr the first 7 years, and 2,000 a year since '05, cuz of public safety issues; and
- seized 111,533 firearms as of '09 for public safety reasons; 87,893 or 78.8% of 'em were long guns.
BTW, it's FREE to register guns now, & used to just be $18 for the first 10. Big whoop, eh? All those histrionics -- most of these guys get so excitable over nothing that they _shouldn't_ have guns.
Look anonymous it is painfully obvious that the Liberals have done a poor job selling the registry.
You seem fine with that. I, however, am not.
When it comes to hot button issues, especially ones that have been flaring up for more than decade, the Liberals have to step up to the plate and provide some substantive talking points.
"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...?"
Wilson, 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 trout out more than decade's worth of stats showing just how many gun owning "farmers and duck hunters" have been convicted of crime.
"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) There are far more gun incidents in rural Canada than in urban Canada. 2) 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. 3) The cops get calls for 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.”
"we meed a list,
like McCarthy, a just in case list."
Let me let Conservative MP Andrew Saxton reply. "owners will still be required to have firearm licences, so police will still know which households have guns because they know who has the firearm licences". However the vote turns out tomorrow, there will still be a list.
Reasonable points.
First-off.Note to some posters; More people nationwide are for abolishing the registry than keeping it or "fixing" it for that matter. The arguement that Canadians want the registry is nonsense.
The problem on the one point is that very few people are asking for handguns to be non registered.
I suppose you could try to lure a "redneck Con. MP" to agree that this is a good idea and the Libs. could have a new boogy-man.
The other issue is that it has already been proven that the gov't can't enforce the registry.
An examples.In most cities the municipal gov't requires people to register their pets.It is a small annual fee that is collected by the city. Some people pay it because it is the law.Others because they feel it is in their best interest eg. if the pet is lost then the tag can help retrieve it. The rest don't care.
Will they be fined? Will they go to jail? Only if there is a sensational case of neglect or abuse. But then they will be in trouble whether the pet(s) are registered or not.
All of this is at the local level so not too many people get concerned about dogs licences.
Gov'ts know they should not be
making rules they cannot enforce.
People are telling MP's to their face that they own unregistered rifles and the MP's know there is squat they can do about it.
The Liberals are not only doing a poor job "selling" the registry;They did a poor job running it for over a decade.
Even if the registry is saved it will be ignored.
"First-off.Note to some posters; More people nationwide are for abolishing the registry than keeping it or "fixing" it for that matter. The argument that Canadians want the registry is nonsense."
Really, The most recent Decima poll put the 48 38 in favour of keeping it.
"The other issue is that 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. No, what matters is whether the law is seen as legitimate by the sizable portion of the population and whether the authorities bother to enforce the law. Some laws fail on both counts and so should be shot down just for those reasons. Texas's sodomy law was a good example. The law lacked legitimacy and was not enforced.
"As far as I'm concerned, there should be ZERO guns in a civilized society. All firearms should be banned.
Anybody who disagrees is a white male chauvinist asshole who should be charged with hate crimes and receive the proper sensitivity training."
Now that sounds like a Conservative astro turfing.
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