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Gun control debated to death

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So National Comment Editor Paul Berton wants, as he noted in yesterday's POV, an "open debate about the future of the (gun) registry, gun control and policing in Canada."

Well, that debate has been going on ever since the Chretien Liberals brought in the billion-dollar boondoggle. Every firearms killing in Canada results in newspapers from coast to coast getting hundreds of letters from the law-abiding firearms owners of Canada decrying the registry because it doesn't prevent crime. In turn, newspapers are flooded with letters from well-meaning but misguided Canadians who buy into the propaganda that the registry saves lives.

But expecting the licensing and registration of guns to prevent shootings is akin believing that registering marriages has prevented divorce, or registering cars and issuing drivers licences prevents traffic accidents.

And the reason that the gun registry does not prevent gun crime is simple: criminals do not - and never will - register their guns.

So police can, as Berton noted yesterday, check the registry thousands of times per day. Doing so will only turn up the law-abiding gun owners who follow the letter of the law.

That might, indeed, be useful to police officers who are responding to certain calls. But it sure as heck isn't going to do anything to put a dent in gang-related gun crime that plagues our streets.

It's not going to stop the members of organized crime who smuggle guns into the country from the United States and elsewhere.

The gun registry sure didn't save the life of 15-year-old Jane Creba, who was shot to death while Boxing Day shopping in Toronto in 2005. Creba was an innocent bystander caught in crossfire between warring gangs. That heinous crime led to then-prime minister Paul Martin declaring that he would ban handguns, despite the fact that handguns have been severely restricted since 1934.

The gun registry has been debated long enough. It's time to dismantle the money-wasting program.