PUBLICATION:
DATE:
2004.12.16
EDITION:
Final
SECTION: Sports
PAGE:
F5
COLUMN:
Bob Scammell
BYLINE:
Bob Scammell
SOURCE:
For The
FIREARM FIGURES
Nowhere
are numbers more important than in trying to make sense out of
My
"guess" has always been that the licensing of owners accounted for
only one-third of the total cost, accomplished all the good of the program and
was largely supported by firearms owners, but that the registration of firearms
gobbled up two-thirds of the money, did no good whatever in a public safety
sense and totally alienated firearms owners.
Not
so long ago, Conservative MP Gary Breitkreuz, hard-working opposition gun
control critic, told me I had a point, but even he could not pry loose a cost
breakdown.
Now,
lo and behold! Late in November, the government tabled figures disclosing what
it had previously denied: that the owner licensing part of the gun control
"package" in fact takes up only about a third -- $396 million
-- of the program's total cost of a billion dollars that have been flushed down
the program over the past nine years.
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GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO BREITKREUZ'S ORDER PAPER QUESTION ON COSTS OF FIREARMS LICENCING AND REGISTRATION.
http://www.cssa-cila.org/garryb/publications/Article472.htm