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National Post DATE: 2006.06.20 EDITION: All but Toronto SECTION: Editorials PAGE: A12 SOURCE: National Post WORD COUNT: 673 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good riddance to the gun registry -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At long last, the first legislative nails are being hammered into the gun registry's coffin. On Monday, Stockwell Day, the Public Safety Minister, introduced a bill in the House of Commons that would amend the Firearms Act and Criminal Code so that law-abiding Canadian hunters, farmers and sport shooters no longer have to register their "long guns" (rifles and shotguns). All handguns would still have to be registered, and all potential gun owners -- even long-gun owners -- would still have to take government-set safety courses, submit to criminal background checks and obtain licences before acquiring a firearm, because those regulations may actually prevent some firearms crimes. But gone will be the expensive, bureaucratic and useless demand that every duck gun, deer rifle and skeet gun be entered in Ottawa's error-riddled database. There will be many accusations by the registry's supporters that the Conservatives' move will raise crime. No doubt gun control advocates will point -- as they have done countless times over the past decade -- to support for the registry from Canada's police chiefs and even the country's largest association of front-line officers. While we certainly respect the opinion of police officers on matters of crime prevention, their official support for the long-gun registry has always been misguided. As the government pointed out on Monday, according to Statistics Canada, "of 549 murders recorded in Canada in 2003, only two were committed with long-guns known to be registered." In theory, it may make sense that knowing the whereabouts of all guns would help police solve or even prevent crimes, or increase officer safety. But in the real world, there is no proof these theories work. No smart policeman would ever enter a site confident there were no guns inside based on the sketchy information in the registry. Nor, since its inception more than a decade ago, has the long-gun registry helped prevent a single murder or robbery. Indeed, with so few registered long-guns used to commit crimes in Canada, it is hard to see how it ever could. Taxpayers, as well as gun owners, will be far better off when they see the back of this debacle, which so far has cost more than $1-billion and is still racking up charges of over $40-million per year. To demonstrate that they are committed to real crime prevention, the Tories have proposed to retain the Liberals' safe storage and transportation rules (some of the strongest in the Western world), which are aimed at cutting down on the theft of guns that are later sold to criminals on the black market. And they will keep the requirement that a valid gun licence must be shown before a gun or even ammunition can be purchased. In addition, the Tories will add a new requirement that private gun owners make sure anyone they are selling a gun to is licensed and free of a criminal record, before they transfer ownership. From the start, many experts inside and outside government warned the Liberals their long-gun registry would turn out to be expensive yet hollow symbolism. Still, the idea was a vote-winner with the Liberals' central, urban and heavily female base, so even after those warnings proved correct, the Liberals clung to the myth that, eventually, registration would produce tangible results. They preserved it, after two computer systems chewed through over a third of a billion dollars and still produced unreliable information on gun owners nearly a quarter of the time. They persevered, even after the Auditor-General pronounced it to be one of the biggest messes she had ever seen from government. Thankfully, the Conservatives have never harboured such delusions and soon Canadians will be well rid of the registry. ------------------------------------------------------------------ BILL C-21 An Act to
amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (non-registration of firearms
that are neither prohibited nor restricted) first reading, June 19, 2006
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