Gun-registry continued

Fidel wrote:

And there are cops who will tell us that a lot more is needed than just a gun registry. Poverty and violence are related issues. It seems to me that they are putting the cart before the horse as usual. They like their computers and high tech if it means increasing their control over the public. But computers and high tech should not be used to make it harder for rich people to export truck loads of untaxed corporate profits out of the country to financial brothels in far away places. I'd like to tell them where they can put their high tech policing equipment, and they wouldn't appreciate it very much at all.

I agree.....the Registry is a tool and nothing more. It doesn't - and cannot - save lifes or even make a decent cup of coffee (or green tea or whatever).  All it can do is provide information to police and state agencies about which Canadians own what guns at a given point in time (notwithstanding accuracy). How the police act based on that information is another thing entirely.

I have no problem keeping the Registry but the penalties associated with not registering or failing to update information should be decriminalized.

I find many of the posts in this thread are quite thoughtful. while I am a strong supporter of the registry for a number of reasons the points being made are well worth paying attention to -- in particular contributions from Thorin Bane and Fidel here have been well worth reading even if one is not inclined to agree with their conclusions. -- you don't have to be on the same side to see merit.

Chris Selley of the NP has an interesting perspective on the LGR debate...yes, it's the NP but it's still an interesting perspective, juxtaposing those supporting the LGR and the police with police actions during the G8/G20, among other things...

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/08/27/chris-selley-trust-the-ev...

I have actually made these points already, and held back from jumping in again, but the notion of an organization like the RCMP having access to this information touches back on my concerns about the registry.

Again, I say this as someone who supports the registry, and if I thought the questions about addiction, depression, financial status and other things actually accomplished anything I would support them. I don't think they do, because lay people are not qualified to answer some of those questions about themselves, and most would just lie. As I said, I think it is pop psychology, and something that would be seen by many people as invasive.

Personally (and again, I say this as a supporter of the registry) I decided to not fill out the form on principle, even though I have nothing personal to reveal in those questions. It is unreliable information that people are supposed to fill out on a form that might have criminal consequences for lying, and it is also highly-revealing personal information that could easily wind up in the hands of a local RCMP officer or judge. That may not seem so bad in a large town or city, but in a rural area where most people know their local cops I am less inclined to trust peoples' discretion and good will (especially some of the cops most of us have met).

And I don't assume that this is information that would just stay at the registry head office. What is the point in having that information if it is not to be used by investigating officers?

Nobody has to answer questions like that to register anything else. They would be illegal for anyone to ask in a job interview, and I cannot imagine why the people who drew up the form thought they might be appropriate or professional in the first place.

(edit)

I think it weakens the registry because it provides bad information, and only serves to rile up opponents.

But I don't want to re-open that debate, because we have been through it before. I just want to again shed a bit of light on the fact that not all people who question the registry are brainwashed conspiracy theorists and red rose teapartiers,

trippie wrote:

I heard on the CBC the other day that the number of long guns used in crimes is 70%. The source was a police study or report of some kind.

 

I'm still having a hard time understnading what the big deal is about having a gun. They are made for one one thing, killing.

 

What's so hard about regisering it anyways? What's the big deal?

 

I've used guns before and killed animals. But as a young boy I quickly realizes that having a gun and using it was anti-thesis to my nature.

 

Ya, there is a thrill shooting one and hitting targets. But what is that thrill really? Is it a sick sense of life, a warper outlook?

 

Why have a gun if you don' t need to hunt to live?

 

What a few guys out in the wilderness is reason to through out all forms of control?

This sort of BS only gives the far right credibility when they say that registration is the first step to confiscation.

Farmers use long guns as a tool to deal with predators.  Aboriginal people (and some recreational hunters) use long guns as a tool as well.  And some people do target shooting for fun.  None of those purposes is illegitimate simply because it offends your delicate sensibilities.  White shoes after Labour Day offend my sensibilities.  Should we ban them too?

But you wrap it up nicely with a viscious slander.

Let me explain a simple fact to you trippie.  Just because someone disagrees with the registry, it does not follow that they are opposed to "all forms of control."  But that handy lie for registry supporters, but it's a lie nonetheless.

My father and uncles didn't have a lot to eat in the 1930's, so they often went hunting, fishing, trapping and even poaching on private property. I'm against killing people and murder as a personal rule of thumb. I know people with rods and guns and who appreciate the fresh air, and they're good people.

Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and Saint Paul
I've seen the future brother:
It is murder. - L.C.

Canadians' registry of guns = the War Measures Act.   

"The Conservatives may have fashioned this political box for the NDP leader, but as is often the case in politics and life, we do not always get to pick our battles. [...] "

Quite the sophomoric equation in sophistry. 

And the Conservatives likewise call for a principled stand.  As John Ibbitson notes in the Globe today: "The people of Yukon want 'someone who will stand up for the people of this region, people of this territory, respect his word and vote to abolish the long-gun registry,' Mr. Harper declared at a media availability."

"The Conservatives happily exploit that divide, in the North and elsewhere. The Liberals and NDP can only suffer."

The Consservatives in Manitoba, whose MP Candice Hoeppner, put forward the motion to abolish, "has been touring oppositiion ridings to persuade (or torment) wavering Liberal and NDP MPs, " writes Ibbitson. 

One can understand the tormenting of the enemy.  New Democrats can't be the target of a tormentor, hereabouts...it just has to be a display of moral superiority. 

If the Bloc can stand tall on this issue, so can the NDP. Anyway, women and labour are unanimous, and that should give Layton all the backbone he needs to take the risk.

"If the Bloc can stand tall on this issue, so can the NDP."

They "stood tall" on it all right - and then a few days later they lost a rural Quebec seat to the Tories in a byelection. All we need is for the Liberals, NDP and BQ to go right on "standing tall" and then watch all those BQ, Liberal and NDP rural seats fall like dominoes to the Conservatives so that they get their majority in the next election. Is that what you'd like to see?

Stockholm wrote:

HOw can women be unanimous? Candace Hoeppner is a woman.

Oh yeah, and Harper had a summer job once, so I was wrong about labour as well.

You didn't really understand the lesson about the Bloc, did you? And you don't understand why the Liberals belatedly decided to whip the vote, did you?

Lana Payne understands very well. Why don't you send her an email and ask if she's pulling for a Conservative majority?

I've looked at polling data on the gun registry and there isn't all that much of a difference between the views of men and women on it. Its an issue that seems to pit urban people vs. rural people more than anything.

I'm not sure what "lesson" there is with the Bloc. They whipped their MPs and promptly lost a rural seat (obviously the voters of Riviere du Loup were not impressed) - even though I suppose that they THINK they have nothing to lose on the issue because they think they don't represent any ridings where the public is decisively against the registry. I'm not saying that the BQ lost that seat because of their stance on the registry - but it didn't get them any brownie points either. Ultimately, its all about political posturing. If Duceppe stuck his finger to the wind and thought for one second that there was a major anti-gun registry groundswell in rural Quebec that might cost him some seats - he would instantly call for a free vote in the BQ caucus.

Incidentally, if you really want to see where opposition to the gun registry is at its most intense - check out any First Nations reserves in northern Ontario or western Canada.

I used to think the gun registry wasn't a bad idea - but now that i see that all these fascistic police chiefs are so supportive of it - I'm having second thoughts. I tend to think that whatever the police want has got to be bad!

@ Stockholm #74

The registry IS a good idea. I see no reason why the government should not keep track of who has firearms and who does not.

It's just that the way it is currently put together has some grave and needless flaws. I don't know if the Liberals were wanting to push people to get rid of their guns, or if they did their research in self-help magazines, but it is almost like they designed it to fail. They certainly did their best to invite a backlash. It did not have to be this way.

Blair is also a carnivore, so expect Stockholm to swear off smoked meat in protest.

This is great. Instead of getting behind the calls for getting a few MPs onside, we're hearing innovative arguments as to why Harper is right and the Liberals, the Bloc, the majority of the NDP caucus, and Jack Layton, are all wrong.

This whole issue is just a big distrcation designed to take our minds off the real issues. The best thing that can happen is that the gun registry dies - no one will shed a tear since its only purpose was to be a wedge issue and it never had any substantive value. Then we can move on to issues where the Tories are actually on the wrong side of public opinion.

In the end, the gun registry is a win-win for the Tories because its only really a vote determining issue for people who own guns - many of whom are actually Tory-NDP and sometimes Tory-Liberal swing voters. Plus its a great way to get First nations to start voting Tory since by all accounts they hate the registry more than anyone. They care because they are the ones who actually have to pay fees and deal with all the paperwork around registering.

People in cities may have some passive approval for the idea of "gun control" - even though the "gun registry" is not "gun control" - but ultimately very few urban dwellers will see this as a vote determining issue because ultimately whether the registry lives or dies will not make one iota of difference to their lives. I don't own a gun and I live in a city - how is my life going to change because some hunters in rural Saskatchewan do or do not have to register all their guns. In any case, all the major contenders (Liberal and NDP) in my riding in the next election will be in favour of keeping the registry - so the issue is a wash.

J.S.Woodsworth, founding leader of the CCF, opposed Canada's declaration of war in 1939...alone.

Stockholm wrote:

Its quite amusing to see pro-registry people start to tout Toronto police chief Bill Blair as some sort of poster boy because he wants to keep the registry. Isn't this the same Bill Blair who used gestapo tcatics at the G20 demos and fabricated evidence afterwards to justify it all.

When the police advocate something - I say "stay as far away as possible".

It's just possible that the police chiefs like the registry because the legislation gives them carte blance to search witthout warrant.

Unionist wrote:

If the Bloc can stand tall on this issue, so can the NDP.

The Bloc has no MPs outside of Quebec and therefore less of a stake in this than the NDP. The two old line parties are clearly targeting NDP MPs in this political diversion.  Liberals and Tories know who the effective opposition MPs are in Ottawa. We need a modern and competitive electoral system in this northern Puerto Rico.

@ OO

Well it didn't help that the justice minister who brought it in, Allan Rock, said he came to Ottawa with the idea that only police and the military should have access to firearms. For all the accusations that registry opponents are wearing tinfoil hats, the Liberals didn't actually take a very balanced approach to the issue when they drew up the thing. The man who stick-handled the bill provided the smoking gun, so to speak.

and @ Voodoorhythm #85

If it actually were a REAL mental health check I could almost see the point, but it is not. It is a question on a form which is as confusing and offensive as it is pointless. You'd think it would be at least as appropriate to ask anyone who wanted a driving license if they had drug or alcohol problems, but strangely enough no one has ever tried to push that through.

Doing the right thing is not always clear.

Was it right for Abraham Lincoln to exempt buffer states from the Emancipation proclamation? Evidently Lincoln gambled that keeping those states in the union was more important in the long haul, even if it meant returning some escaped slaves, and not respecting the principle of opposing human slavery.

It is also hard when you are fighting for an issue which, although the principle is clear, has been put into practice with a law which is in some respects a poisoned cup.

I'm not calling for Jack Layton's replacement. I am just recognizing that he is in a very hard place no matter what he decides, and I presume he might be privy to a lot of information that we do not have.

6079, By whipping the vote, Layton can save the registry AND save his dissidents from certain defeat by voters who hàte the registry but keep voting NDP - right? Or so goes the "analysis".

Meanwhile, I'm still not convinced that this issue will actually have any legs in Liberal/NDP marginal seats in urban Canada. The fact is that the NDP MPs from ridings where public opinion is probably very pro gun registry are all voting against the private members bill. Libby Davies, Don Davies, Megan Leslie, Pat Martin, Olivia Chow, Jack Layton, Thomas Mulcair, Paul Dewar etc... are all going to vote that way. Even if any of them were going to vote to scrap the registry - I think its debatable that it would be a vote determining in a federal election down the road - but none of them are doing that.

So, explain to me - if I live in Trinity-Spadina and I support the gun registry and so does Olivia Chow and she votes to keep it - where is the wedge issue??? Unless I was Wendy Cukier herself (maybe) - it seems like you have to connect an awful lot of dots in an election sometime in 2011 to buy some convoluted Liberal talking point that would be something along the lines of "yes, Olivia Chow supports the gun registry and so does the Liberal candidate in this riding, BUT we must vote against her even though she is unswervingly supportive of the gun registry as an act of spite against the fact that the MP for Western Arctic is a member of the same party as she is and he voted to scrap the registry!". I dunno, I find that to be a very clumsy convoluted argument to make and one that will only have "legs" among a few die-hard Liberal bloggers.

Of course, if I were to accept the Liberal line that I should vote against pro-gun registry New Democrats to protest the fact that a smll minority of other NDPers are anti-gun registry - then I guess that means that no matter how pro-choice on abortion the Liberal candidate in Trinity-Spadina might claim to be - I should deny that person my vote because they sit in the same caucus as about a dozen Liberal MPs who are anti-choice fanatics!

Stockholm wrote:

So, explain to me - if I live in Trinity-Spadina and I support the gun registry and so does Olivia Chow and she votes to keep it - where is the wedge issue???

It's not quite as convoluted as you make it out to be. How about this:

"Olivia Chow voted to keep the registry - she did the right thing. But the registry is now dead, because some NDP MPs voted with Harper. A vote for Olivia Chow, unfortunately, is a vote for the party that killed the registry instead of keeping it, building on it, and moving to make our communities safer."

How about this: "the gun registry would still be alive today if the Liberals under Ignatieff didn't walk away from a coalition with the NDP in January 2009 and then spend the next two years keeping Harper in power in exchange for nothing"!