March 17, 1995 For Immediate Release
151 LEAKS REPORTED IN POLICE COMPUTERS USED TO REGISTER GUNS AND GUN OWNERS
"Criminals will know which homes have guns and which ones do not," says Breitkreuz.
Ottawa - Today in the House of Commons, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, exposed a major flaw in the Liberal government's plan to register all rifles and shotguns and to create a registry of all firearm owners. Breitkreuz' statement was inspired by Professor Taylor Buckner from Concordia University in his letter to the Globe and Mail on January 30th: "In 1994, the RCMP reported that there were 151 incidents of police being accused of misusing confidential data, and further that they were unable to stop this misuse. This is the same database on which the Justice Minister proposes to list all firearms and their owners."
"The RCMP admission proves the gun registry system could be illegally accessed by criminals to quickly identify those homes with guns and those without. If they want to steal guns they will break into a gun owner's home while the owners are away. If they want to steal valuables or just trash your house they will break into the unarmed homes any time they want. Gun control and in particular the proposed firearm registration system will make crime easier for criminals not harder," exclaimed Breitkreuz.
Professor Buckner's research shows the rate of burglaries of occupied households is directly related to the level of gun control in a country: 13% in the United States, 40% in Canada and 57% in Britain. "People who do not own guns benefit from the burglar's fear that the criminals don't know which of us are armed and which are not. If the anti-gun lobbyists doubt that they personally benefit from the criminals' fear of guns, I suggest they put a sign on the front door of their house telling everyone that "This is a Gun-Free Home", and see what happens," advised Breitkreuz.
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