PUBLICATION:
The Calgary Sun
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial/Opinion
PAGE:
14
COLUMN:
Editorial
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GUN
SHY
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We
would like to bet on a sure thing. It is that not a single criminal in our
country has registered his or her gun since since the Liberal government's
Canadian Firearms Registration System was dreamed up some five years ago.
Yet,
come Dec. 31, an estimated 500,000 law-abiding Canadians, who own guns, will be
deemed criminals because they haven't registered their firearms. These are
farmers, hunters, sports-gun enthusiasts and antique collectors who are, in
reality, just decent citizens fed up with Ottawa's nosey-pokey interference in
their lives. Maybe even some patriotic Canadians who put their lives on the line
during the Second World War and the Korean War and kept a gun as a souvenir.
The
gun registration law was the idea of Federal Industry Minister Allan Rock -- he
was then justice minister, and later to become health minister, which makes us
also wonder why this man can't hold a steady job -- who somehow thought gun
registration would cut down on crime.
Criminals,
he supposed, would register their guns, and then when they committed a crime,
the police would have an easier time tracking down the culprits.
Again,
we ask the Liberal government: How many criminals have actually voluntarily
registered their guns? And again we
bet, not a one. Yet the so-called gun-control law is costing Canadian taxpayers
an estimated $1 billion. That's
while our Armed Forces are bleeding to death because they can't afford to buy
guns to defend our nation. It simply doesn't make sense, does it?
Every
since Rock's idea passed into law the gun registration centre has been embroiled
in controversy. There have been the skyrocketing costs of the centre, and a
backlog of complaints of incompetency by staff members from those who actually
tried to register their guns. This boondoggle becomes more alarming the more we
hear about it.
Why
don't Ottawa's Liberal politicians scrap this bogus law right now?
Before we label half-a-million honest Canadians as being criminals.