PUBLICATION:        The Leader-Post (Regina)

DATE:                         2004.08.26

EDITION:                    Final

SECTION:                  Viewpoints

PAGE:                         B7

SOURCE:                   The Leader-Post

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Gun registry firing blanks

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IN BRIEF: More than 700,000 licenced gun owners still have not registered their firearms, 18 months after the registration deadline.

The evidence just keeps piling up that the federal gun registry is an unmitigated waste of taxpayers' money.

As of last month, more than 700,000 licenced gun owners had still not complied with the registration section of the Firearms Act. A full 18 months after the registration deadline, 406,834 holders of long gun possession licences had not registered their guns with the Canadian Firearms Agency. The documents, obtained by Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz of Yorkton-Melville under the Access to Information Act, also show that another 316,837 gun owners have failed to either register or dispose of their handguns.

That's how effective this program is in registering guns. And it's no more effective on the crime fighting side. Earlier this year the government admitted the gun registry had not helped solve a single violent crime. Nor is it likely to help in cases where professional criminals are involved, for the simple reason criminals don't bother to register their guns.

Starting in January, 2005, the situation will get even more absurd. That's when municipal, provincial and federal police forces all across Canada will be required to begin registering all of their arms with the Canadian Firearms Centre.

With an estimated 100,000 handguns in use as police sidearms, plus various SWAT team arms, the new requirement will only add to the already bloated costs of the registry, to say nothing of what it will cost the country's various police forces to comply.

Since its inception in 1994, the federal government has poured more than $1 billion down the drain on the firearms registry program. To great fanfare just before calling June's general election, the government announced "major changes" to the gun registry. These "changes" amounted to capping spending on the registry at $25 million annually (the total yearly cost of the program is about $113 million), cancelling the $25 fee for registration and transfer of firearms, streamlining of the licence renewal process and a promise to stiffen Criminal Code provisions for crimes involving guns.

At the time, we said it was much ado about very little. There's only one way to bring this money-gobbling travesty under control -- scrap the whole thing.