NEWS RELEASE

August 24, 2004                                                                                             For Immediate Release

FIREARMS CENTRE ADMITS TO MASSIVE NON-COMPLIANCE AND INCOMPETENCE

“It is simply not credible for the Liberals to claim that their billion-dollar registry

is of any value whatsoever to police when it is missing so many guns.”

Yorkton – Today, Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz and long-time critic of the Liberals’ fatally-flawed firearms program, released another damning report produced by the Canada Firearms Centre (CFC).  The report was obtained by Breitkreuz through an Access to Information (ATI) Act request, and reveals massive non-compliance with the firearms program.  “The government’s own records show that a year-and-a-half after the registration deadline, more than 700,000 licenced gun owners still haven’t registered and/or re-registered their guns and more than a million guns remain unregistered,” revealed Breitkreuz.  “It is simply not credible for the Liberals to claim that their billion-dollar registry is of any value whatsoever to police when it is missing so many guns.”

Why doesn’t Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan brag about these figures in a news release or in Parliament?

• Total number of valid firearm license holders that still haven’t registered a gun = 406,834.
• Total number of gun owners that still have to re-register or dispose of their handguns = 316,837.
• Total number of firearms that still have to be registered = 1,000,000 (based on government estimates).
• Total number of handguns and prohibited guns that still have to be re-registered = 619,627.
• The CFC admitted they have not even collected statistics on the 288,688 guns brought into Canada by visitors between the years 2000 and 2003.

“And, these numbers only reflect the gun owners and guns that are captured in the Liberal government’s billion-dollar (heading for $2 billion) system.  There are upwards of a million gun owners who never bothered to get a firearms licence including more than 300,000 owners of previously registered handguns,” reported Breitkreuz.  In response to another Breitkreuz ATI request, dated May 13, 2004, the CFC also admitted that it had still not implemented its 10-month-old National Compliance Strategy & Program.

“These statistics also demonstrate a failure in the management of the firearms program.  The firearms centre has the name and address of every one of these non-compliant gun owners.  Either the people in charge are incompetent or they’re afraid to enforce their flawed legislation or both,” concluded Breitkreuz.

GUN REGISTRY NON-COMPLIANCE STATISTICS AS OF JULY 20, 2004

http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Firearms%20Registered2004-08-18.xls

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