On a list of favourite activities, renewing my car registration would rank rather low. Still, having done it recently, I can attest that it didn't feel like an assault on my freedom.
Other car owners with me in line seemed similarly undisturbed, apparently realizing this was part of a rather sensible system of licensing and registering drivers and vehicles in an attempt to ensure that the powerful, motorized vehicles we drive at great speeds kill and injure fewer people.
Yet, strangely, this week parliamentarians seem set to vote for a Conservative private member's bill to scrap a registry that provides a similar system of regulatory control -- but for a product that is far more likely to kill.
Of course, cars can kill. But that's not their primary purpose. Guns, on the other hand, are weapons designed to kill and maim. They can be used lawfully but they cry out for basic licensing and registration.
Yet hardcore gun owners have bizarrely characterized the registration of their long guns as an assault on their freedom. (Alberta argued the registry violated constitutional freedoms in a case it eventually lost at the Supreme Court.)
It's hard to grasp exactly what freedom is under assault here. All that's required is registration -- which is about as coercive as being obliged to put recyclable garbage into a separate bin.
Certainly, it's hard to imagine a less onerous registration process. Unlike car registrations, which must be renewed annually, guns (unless sold or traded) only have to be registered once.
But licensing and registration help prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, argues Wendy Cukier, a Ryerson University professor who heads the Coalition for Gun Control. The system holds gun owners accountable, allowing guns to be traced back to their owners. This discourages owners from storing guns carelessly, or giving or selling them to unlicensed individuals.
Statistics Canada data show that rifles and shotguns are the weapons most often used in domestic violence, suicides and police killings. Since the long-gun registry was introduced in 1995, murders with rifles and shotguns have dropped -- from 61 in 1995 to 34 in 2008.
This suggests that the registry may be playing a role in reducing gun deaths. Surely this possibility, plus the strong support for the registry from police chiefs across the country, should be enough to convince any government -- particularly one claiming to be concerned about crime -- to retain the registry.
Yet the Harper government has pushed relentlessly to scrap it, with the Prime Minister even vowing last week that "the party I lead will not rest until the day it is abolished."
This steadfast determination -- so lacking when it comes to tackling real threats like climate change -- is all about playing to the Conservative base by stirring up libertarian feelings and anti-urban resentments in rural gun owners.
Simple rationality calls for keeping the registry, especially now that the initially costly program is operating for less than $4 million a year -- the cost of a couple of minutes of "security" at the billion-dollar G20 summit last June.
How absurd has the political situation in this country become that MPs -- including some from the NDP -- are afraid to stand up and defend the registration of lethal weapons?
While the Harper government builds prisons for imaginary crimes, it plans to leave guns with real killing potential -- some 7 million of them -- unaccounted for in our midst.
Linda McQuaig is author of It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet. This article was originally published in The Toronto Star.
"The world needs to hear a lot less from the mainstream media, and a lot more from rabble.ca," says Linda McQuaig. We agree Linda! Help us spread the word by becoming a member of rabble.ca (www.rabble.ca/membership) and get your own new set of words in the form of a magazine subscription.
The Firearms Act suspends Charter rights for LEGAL firearms owners (PAL/POL holders), enabling police to conduct warrantless searches. This happened recently, in Toronto, when Bill Blair--the G20 protesters' favorite Chief--had his police conduct 'inspections' of licensed senior citizens' homes for 'unsafe storage' and the like. People with registered firearms, who'd let their PALs lapse, also got paid visits from Blair's goon squad, who siezed (legally-purchased) firearms and layed charges. This comes at a time when staggering numbers of gun-toting gang members troll the streets, their Charter rights against warrantless searches fully protected, since they are NOT legal firearms owners. Examples of this phenomenon are the scumbags who murdered Jane Creba, most of whom were parolled criminals.
You say it's legitimate to suspend the Charter rights of gun owners, since firearms are so scary and icky, and there's a real public safety need. Fine. How about warrantless, door-to-door searches for missing Children? When Miriam Makhniahvili went missing, Chief Blair made it very clear that he intended to conduct WARRANTLESS, door-to-door searches for her, in her neighborhood (thankfully, he didn't). How about suspending Charter rights, so firefighters and utility workers can inspect homes for grow-ops, with all of their crime, health and safety (jury-rigged wiring and whatnot) issues? Vancouver's city government pushed for this. And since almost all the terrorist activity in Canada is the work of either Sikhs (e.g., the Babbar Khalsa bombing of the Air India plane) and Muslims, how about warrantless police inspections of the homes of Sikhs and Muslims who buy ammonium nitrate, or large amounts of electronics? The Air India bombing was a huge tragedy and the various Islamist terrorist plots they busted in Canada could have killed thousands, so there is, after all, a real public safety argument here. And, maybe, social workers, psychologists and other professionals, along with the police, should be able to track KNIFE purchases, since this is the preferred domestic homicide weapon. Remember that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police--sponsored by gun registry IT contractor CGI--lobbied hard against the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And quit quoting that Coalition for Gun Control maven, Wendy Cukier. Cukier is being investigated for an illegal, $380,000 lobbyist grant she received from then-Justice Minister Allan Rock's office, to act as a paid government lobbyist. Cukier also owns Telecon Consulting, an IT firm which has made money off of registry-related contracts for the RCMP. Cukier's group is also funded by the International Action Network on Small Arms--a british-based group, funded by billionaire donors like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Along with opening it's deep pockets to the Coalition for Gun Control and other groups, IANSA advises the NDP and Liberals on gun control legislation.
The Firearms Act and Gun Registry never was about either public safety, or women's health. The Chretien-Martin government disbanded the Ports police and refused to arm border guards (both invaluable in the interdiction of U.S. and Asian gun smuggling)--for cost reasons. They cut funding for breast cancer research--for cost reasons. Yet they pissed away nearly $2B on the Firearms Centre. Why? Because the Chretien campaign was funded by Firearms Centre porkbarrel contractors CGI and Honeywell. And the RCMP report proporting that the long gun registry 'only' costs $4M per annum to operate is pure fiction. PSAC is fighting to save 240 jobs on the LGR file, alone (not the Restricted/Prohibited, or licensing bureaucracies), which puts merely the labour costs for the registry FAR above the RCMP's figure. There is some creative accounting going on, here. Remember that the Firearms Centre once spent $13.5M on 'travel expenses' in ONE YEAR--this is not a thrifty agency. The Auditor General needs a look at the Mounties' accounting practices.
Chiefs like Rick Hanson (Calgary) and Julian Fantino (OPP) have admitted that the LGR is worthless, an opinion shared by most police officers. Non-compliance is massive, with an estimated 30-50% of LEGALLY-ACQUIRED firearms (under the old FAC system) unregistered. And, like the old (1935) handgun registry, the LGR has neither prevented, nor solved a single crime. The LGR's supporters concede this, so they keep flogging the '11,000 hits per day' statistic--a bogus number, generated automatically by police computer searches on everything from fender-benders, to jaywalking tickets. And, if the words of a whistle-blower are to be believed, the RCMP has actually been PAYING police departments to search the registry, in order to inflate useage numbers. If this is true, this is departmental fraud on a massive scale.
And forget what the Liberals and NDP say about a 'compromise'--Bill C-391 IS a compromise, which leaves everything else in the Firearms Act intact. And talk about 'decriminalizing' the registry is bunk: this is not doable, without scrapping the Firearms Act entirely, and taking firearms laws out of the Criminal Code. Iggy and Jack know this, but are hoping voters are too stupid to realize it.
Bill C-391 has nothing to say about warrantless searches, so most of the above rant is completely irrelevant to the issue of the registration of non-restricted firearms. Warrantless searches will be unaffected by the outcome of the vote in Parliament.
The rest is based on rumour and unsubstantiated assumptions.
"Bill C-391 has nothing to say about warrantless searches..."
I wasn't talking about C-391, here. The warrantless inspections are part of the Liberal's Firearms act, which C-391 leaves entirely entact--everything, from the home inspections, to 5-year revocable licensing with photo ID, sexual partner permission (ask your ex liv-in for his/her okay on owning a gun), questions about mental health and divorce, job-loss, two references, mandatory firearms safety courses, background checks, registration and Authorizations To Transport for restricted/prohibited weapons--EVERYTHING stays the same, under C-391, except the registration of unrestricted weapons. Yet this is too much for the Cukiers and CGIs, riding a bureaucratic gravy train. And, again, this IS a compromise. And, no, you CAN'T 'decriminalize' failiure to register, or other violations, without taking firearms law out of the Criminal Code.
By "rumour and unsubstantiated assumptions," I'm guessing you are referring to Cukier, Telecon Consulting, IANSA, that illegal grant, and CGI's funding of the CACP. These are a matter of public record, and Cukier's $380,000 grant a matter of an ongoing investigation. And Blair's big 'public safety' blitz was well-publicized. What's a big mystery is the RCMPs/Canadian Firearms Centre's accounting departments, something which the Auditor General needs to look at.
Automobile licenses are not required if you leave the vehicle on your property and do not operate it on public roads. Perhaps if the registry was only for firearms to be used on public property it could be reasonably compared to automobile registry. Otherwise the comparison is disingenous.
For some freedom might be the issue, but that aside progressives should be concerned with this knee jerk piece of political pandering that wastes time and resources that could be used for other programs likely to have a much greater effect on promoting safety and public well being.
How many wrong hands is not mentioned. Nor is the fact considered that the number of long gun homicides is very small, particularly compared all other forms of violence and preventable causes of death that are not getting the resources being wasted on the registry. Also not mentioned is that firearms can be registered at point of sale only, without all of the bureacracy that comes with this registration program, and there would be very little opposition.
What is not mentioned that the homicide rate has been falling for 30 years, although there was period of increased spousal homicides after 1995, including homicides with long guns. In 2005 there were 59. Point being that the statistics are not a reliable indicator of the effect of the registry. In addition we are spending millions to prevent less than 50 deaths per year when we could probably prevent more spending it elsewhere.
Police chiefs have political incentive to support the registry, plus it has been claimed that the company with the contract for the registry software is a major contributor to the police chiefs association. Interesting that progressives should tout the support of people who are responsible for the repression of people protesting in Vancouver, Quebec and recently Toronto. Maybe the registry has something in common with the repressive policy of these chiefs?
No, it calls for scrapping it. Besides being a waste of resources when there are better and less controversial approaches to achieving the same goals, it give the Conservatives a tool to play silly bugger with their opposition, and may allow them to pick up a majority in the next election. One must ask why people like Wendy Cukier seem to want a Conservative majority.
How undemocatic that leaders would whip their caucus to vote against the will of their constituents on this. This should be a free vote issue for all parties. It is reported that recent polls show about a 70% support in Canada for abolishing the registry. The public does not want the registry, it wastes resources for little or nor benefit, and could be replaced totally by a more effective user/possesser licensing program that would be generally accepted by Canadians.
One has to ask, with safety and effectiveness off of the table, what really is behind this registry?