John Geddes

John Geddes writes on politics and policy, with occasional reporting and comment on arts and culture.

Categories: Capital Read, John Geddes

How police use the gun registry

by John Geddes on Thursday, April 2, 2009 12:47pm - 177 Comments

How police use the gun registry Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to try for a third time to scrap the gun registry has been cast by Conservatives as a cultural question, a matter of understanding rural Canada, in particular the way folks outside the big cities use their rifles and shotguns.

But there’s another gap of understanding that I would argue is more important in getting a handle on this debate: grasping how police use the gun registry. If there’s a case for keeping the registry, it must rest on how useful the database is to police, especially when a cop has to venture into a potentially dangerous situation.

So I asked the RCMP, who were made responsible for the Canadian Firearms Program back in 2006, and they provided up-to-date statistics. In 2008, police across Canada used their computer systems, often terminals right in their patrol cars, to pull information from the Canadian Firearms Registry On-line over 9,400 times a day.

That adds up to a staggering 3,438,729 queries from police officers last year. It’s hard to imagine a federal database more intensively mined.

I asked a veteran officer in an informal conversation to explain how the system is typically used. He said a cop called to domestic dispute will routinely conduct a quick computer check to see if there is a licensed gun owner at that address, and find out exactly what guns are registered there.

It’s not hard to imagine how discovering that a resident owns a single hunting rifle might suggest one thing to an officer; finding out the man causing the disturbance possesses several exotic weapons would indicate something else again.

Police also use the registry to conduct so-called reverse checks; in cases where they recover a gun, perhaps from a crime scene, they check on who is the registered owner. Those in favour of scrapping the so-called long gun registry make a point of stressing that, even without it, police would still be able to check out who has a licence to own guns. But that wouldn’t be any help when the cops are working to trace the ownership of a specific firearm that turns up in an investigation.

A few statistics help round out the picture of how the online data is used. Police most often plug a name into the system to find out if that person is a licenced gun owner and what registered guns the individual owns. They made that sort of query more than 2 million times last year, so often that this has obviously become very basic step in Canadian police work.

The next most common sort of data search involves checking to see if guns are associated with a certain address. Police made address queries more than 900,000 in 2008. They checked serial numbers on firearms 74,103 times. They also, less frequently, search for data by entering company names or telephone numbers of potential gun owners.

Is it possible that police have fallen into the habit of using this system so very often for no good reason? I don’t think so. Millions of data searches must turn up thousands of pieces of useful information. So, in considering the bill introduced yesterday in the Senate to eliminate the gun registry, you must balance the loss of information police evidently want to have, and make a point of obtaining millions of times a year, against the benefit of relieving honest gun owners of the minor inconvenience and expense of registering.

In his March 21 speech to the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, Harper spoke of this debate in terms of an urban-rural divide. “The leaders of the opposition parties continue to be against this,” he said. “But there are MPs in all these parties that know what we know, that law-abiding hunters and farmers are not part of the crime problem.”

The Prime Minister is tapping something deeply felt here. Where I grew up in Northwestern Ontario, most households had guns and I’m sure most hunters these days still resent having to register them. (They don’t like filling out their income tax returns, either, or affixing the little renewal sticker to the corner of their licence plates, but they’ve gotten used to it.)

For my sins, I’ve lived in cities for a long time now and drunk my share of low-fat lattes. My recollection of the general perspective of the hunters I’ve known, though, is that they tend to respect police, and I doubt they would really begrudge cops a tool that gives them a little extra information, maybe a bit of an edge, when they’re walking into, let’s say, a kitchen where a depressed drunk has been smashing up the cupboards.

You want to know if that guy has a gun.

The following tables show police access to the Canadian Firearms Registry On-line (CFRO), for 2008 (by quarter).

The table below shows CFRO access, by province/territory for 2008.

Query Count	2008 Q 1	2008 Q 2	2008 Q 3	2008 Q 4	Total
Ontario	379,279	430,465	444,901	428,171	1,682,816
British Columbia	182,170	210,880	224,330	208,153	825,533
Alberta	76,911	84,380	88,691	80,381	330,363
Quebec	31,438	38,004	37,132	42,345	148,919
New Brunswick	30,137	35,840	34,768	31,208	131,953
Manitoba	21,727	27,424	24,446	21,717	95,314
Nova Scotia	18,451	19,808	19,978	18,910	77,147
Newfoundland and Labrador	13,825	17,310	18,972	16,085	66,192
Saskatchewan	23,992	18,057	3,240	3,438	48,727
Northwest Territories	3,416	3,436	2,655	5,027	14,534
Yukon	2,391	2,748	2,704	1,273	9,116
Prince Edward Island	1,865	2,118	2,038	2,093	8,114
Nunavut	-	-	1	-	1
All Locations	785,602	890,470	903,856	858,801	3,438,729

More by John Geddes

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Yes, I’m sure that the police chiefs would like to keep the long-gun registry.

They would also like to be able to wiretap your phone, your cell phone, and your email accounts. They would also like to be able to search your home, your place of work, your business, and your person without needing a search warrant. They would also like to be able to arrest you for any whim that comes to them without need of an arrest warrant.

Would all those people here who are advocating for the registry also advocate for all these other tools that the police could use to make their jobs easier?

As far as confiscation is concerned. It is already happening. Shortly after registration started, some guns were reclassifed and banned. Now they had lists of every owner and began confiscating them.

Everything they have told you inorder to sell the long-gun registry to the public has been a lie.

Time to end this lie, and support Senate Bill S-5 to get rid of the registry, once and for all.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

An honest question, Jim: apart from the expense, and just in terms of rights, how is the gun registry different from the car registry?

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Well, for one thing, most people do not have an uninformed, illogical fear of automobiles. No one, (with the possible exception of a few enviro-loonies) want to ban the private ownership of cars.

Myth: Guns should be registered and licensed like cars

Fact: You do not need a license to buy a car. You can buy as many as you want and drive them all you like on your own property without a license.

Fact: Cars are registered because they are (a) sources of tax revenue, (b) objects of fraud in some transactions, and (c) significant theft targets. Thus we ask the government to track them.

Fact: There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear automobiles, and thus they are subject to greater regulation than guns.

Myth: Registration does not lead to confiscation

Fact: It did in Canada. The handgun registration law of 1934 was the source used to identify and confiscate (without compensation) over half of the registered handguns in 2001.

Fact: It did in Germany. The 1928 Law on Firearms and Ammunition (before the Nazis came to power) required all firearms to be registered. When Hitler came to power, the existing lists were used for confiscating weapons.

Fact: It did in Australia. In 1996, the Australian government confiscated over 660,000 previously legal weapons from their citizens.

Fact: It did in California. The 1989 Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act required registration. Due to shifting definitions of “assault weapons,” many legal firearms are now being confiscated by the California government.

Fact: It did in New York City. In 1967, New York City passed an ordinance requiring a citizen to obtain a permit to own a rifle or shotgun, which would then be registered. In 1991, the city passed a ban on the private possession of some semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, and “registered” owners were told that those firearms had to be surrendered, rendered inoperable, or taken out of the city.

Fact: It did in Bermuda, Cuba, Greece, Ireland, Jamaica, and Soviet Georgia as well.

I hope this helps to explain our opposition to firearms registration.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to bear firearms in Canada, not by a long shot (as it were).

All your examples concern the banning of assault weapons and handguns. Those already require registration in Canada and they have not been banned outright.

A car that never leaves your property is not a car in any meaningful sense.

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

+++ There is no constitutionally guaranteed right to bear firearms in Canada, not by a long shot (as it were).+++

That one is open to argument. The Magna Carta still has weight in Canada. Just because it got left out of our written down rights, does not mean it does not exist. “Rights” exist because they are rights, not because some government decided to write it down.

+++ All your examples concern the banning of assault weapons and handguns. Those already require registration in Canada and they have not been banned outright. +++

My quote actually said “semi-automatic rifles and shotguns” not “assault weapons”. BIG difference! Assault rifles are FULLY automatic, and except for a very few collectors and the military, can not be owned legally in Canada.

+++ A car that never leaves your property is not a car in any meaningful sense. +++

Depends. If I own 500 acres of land and have a 4X4, I could have a lot of use for that unregistered vehicle.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Ah, that’s a good point about the weapons — sorry! On the car, I guess I see your point, but the vast majority of cars in Canada are for street / road use, and the government registers them so as to be able to tax them (at the point of sale, mainly). My only point there was that registration is not, in itself, sinister.

Re: the threat of confiscation / repossession, I just can’t see it ever happening. I mean, there’s been a big enough backlash from rural Canada about the gun registry to begin with; can you imagine any party ever deciding to confiscate people’s hunting rifles? They would lose every seat outside downtown Vancouver and Toronto. I mean, it would be apocalyptic. I really don’t think that’s a serious possibility, ever.

Re: rights, I quite agree that there are unwritten rights, but I don’t know if they include firearms. Otherwise, wouldn’t the courts have overturned the ban on automatic weapons? It seems to me the best legal defense of rifle ownership is that it allows people to hunt for food, which is a fairly inherent right.
Storm

Jack your words show just how little you know.

Did you miss the Liberal call to ban handguns in Canada? Have you never heard so called mayor millers calls for a ban? There is currently nothing to stop them from doing it.

Not to meantion the current laws prohibit over half of the handguns and most “so called” assault rifles. That is confiscation but done slowly. I cannot pass my prohibitted firearms on to my kids when I die. They can only be sold to other “grandfathered people” that my friend is confiscation. You see in the end there will be only one grandfathered pereson in Canada. When they die ALL prohibs will have been confiscated. So it really is confiscation.

I shoudl also point out that you do not have a constitutional right to own ANYTHIING. Not your gun, not your car, not your house not your socks. We do not have property rights as that was specifically REMOVED by PET from the original constitution.

So really we both should be upset about its removal.
Gaunilon

I’m in agreement with Mitchell on this one. Registration can be misused, just as a gun can be misused. That doesn’t make registration (or guns) evil.

In general we require people to register anything whose misuse leads to great harm. This allows us to hold people responsible. Examples include vehicles on public roads, children, new construction in populated areas, flight plans over populated areas, etc. It is not unreasonable to expect the same for firearms.

That said, it is clear that the Liberals intended the registration partly to eradicate lawful gun ownership by making the process expensive and awkward. This was totalitarian (but unsurprising, coming from the Liberals). It is not unlikely that they intended to use it to gradually make all firearms illegal. Incremental encroachments tend to be overlooked by the public, leading to the battle being decided before the citizenry even realizes their rights have been taken away. The same is currently underway with free speech.

A reasonable solution is this: as with cars, require people to register firearms in a cheap and efficient manner. As with cars, provide severe penalties for those who misuse the gun and significantly lesser penalties for those who fail to register. And finally, add constitutional guarantees for the right to possess and bear arms. No society can be easily subjugated while the citizens are well armed.
Nimrod45

Read Section 26 of the so-called “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” and get back to us.
Wotcher?

There is no mention in Magna Carta of weapons or arms. Most of the Charter concerns property rights, taxes and due process. The majority of the provisions are specific to the time in which they were written and have little relevance today (with the exception of due process).

Magna Carta has never applied in Canada.

Ken

I agree Jim!

This is really all about more government control. Fact is, criminals will find guns on the black market as, it seems they always do. Right now they are trying to take away the rights of law abiding American citizens to bear arms. This is in violation of their constitutional rights.

I personally don’t like guns, but I know what the real issue here is. It is indeed just more control of the people. Government is becoming a monster and will ultimately become a tyrant if left to their devices unchallenged. If the gun registry succeeds, they will most certainly go for other things as well.
http://www.zychowski.ca Thomas Zychowski

Indeed that is completely true from a first hand experience. The Police enter your home seize your weapons and unless you have deep pockets that is all she wrote. I will fight.

Maybe a knife registry next as suggested already, it’s laughable and it was put forward already after the decapitating incident near Portage la Prairie.

How about the costs?

four thousand million dollars………..that is allot of money……and it will keep going up and you will not be safer……..just more scared……..like in the US……lock your doors……watch the media……..

The handguns used in most crimes are smuggled from the US and are not our own. Maybe the smugglers will register their weapons.

All I need to do is watch Dziekanski and his execution and the lies that followed by the RCMP all documented by the media. We trust these liars! The Crown knowing the RCMP officers lied in their statements perjured themselves on the stand will not lay charges. We want to give more power to these idiots. I shed no tears for them anymore as the few have tarnished the entire organization.

I am ashamed to be Canadian.

Bob

Those registry numbers are misleading!

Every radio call with an address the police get has an automatic registry check for guns.
The officers don’t do it – a computer does!

Regardless of the check results (which is largely ignored, I’ll bet), police training is to treat every call as a potential gun call, because there is always one there – the cop’s.

It’s not the lawful owners of guns that have to be suspected all the time; it’s the CRIMINAL’s guns, which AREN’T registered!

The registry is meaningless, as much as a knife registry would be.
Lose it.
Police Chiefs are cops only in name. It would be fair to say they are politicians of a nature, and have to do bidding to keep their jobs (remember Fantino!).
http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

“Why are our usually obedient neighbors to the North so feisty?

One reason is they have realized that gun registration really does lead to confiscation. Handguns have been registered in Canada since 1934, and for decades, the Canadian government only used the registration records for innocent purposes. But shortly after winning election in November 1993, the new Chrétien government imposed an administrative decree banning over half of all handguns. The current registered owners may retain the guns until they die, and then the guns must be surrendered to the government. No compensation will be paid for the confiscation.

The gun-registration law, Bill C-68, gave the government the authority to confiscate any and all rifles and shotguns, whenever it wishes — a fact which Canada’s National Firearms Association has been busily publicizing. Registration this year is plainly a step towards confiscation a few years from now.

Why is the Liberal Party pushing for registration so resolutely, even as the registration law drives so many Canadians — especially on the prairie — away from the Liberal Party?

Public safety has nothing to do with it. The Justice Department worked diligently to suppress an independent research report — which had been commissioned by the Justice Department — that showed the 1977 gun-owner licensing law had been a failure.

One motive for registration is simply a crass — although perhaps mistaken — political calculation that there are more urban female votes to be gained by attacking “masculine” culture than there are rural male votes to be lost. Indeed, polling research of Canadian gun-control supporters shows them to be almost perfectly ignorant of Canada’s already-strict gun-control laws; their main motive for wanting more gun control is not the expectation that people will be safer, but their desire to express their antipathy for “macho” values.

Addressing the 11th Annual Community Legal Education Associations conference in January 1996, Senator Sharon Carstairs made a telling admission when she thought no one else was listening: The new Firearms Act was intended, from the outset, to be integral to her party’s plans to “socially re-engineer Canada.” Guns are favored by rural males, and are associated with self-reliance, and are therefore contrary to the Liberal Party’s desire for a feminized and dependent nation.

In short, Canadian gun control is a sort of slow-motion hate crime, perpetrated by the government. The real purpose is to harm a minority whom the government dislikes. In the United States, one need only attend a few anti-gun rallies — especially rallies put on by the dishonestly named Million Mom March — to find plenty of anti-gun activists for whom hatred is obviously the guiding value.

The Canadian nation has always prided itself on tolerance. The mean-spirited intolerance that animates Canada’s anti-gun-owner laws is helping many Canadians understand something that some of their British ancestors figured out back in 1215 with King John and the Magna Carta: There comes a time when a man who loves his country must tell his government, “Stop. Not one bit further.” ”

- Dave Kopel, director, and Dr. Paul Gallant & Dr. Joanne Eisen, research associates, from the Independence Institute – 2000
http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Bruce Montague is an ordinary Canadian who has been charged under the Firearms Act. On September 11, 2004 Bruce was arrested and jailed for 11 days for violation of the licensing and registration terms of the Firearms Act. Police officers then conducted a 36 hour search of the Montague home, seizing and confiscating Bruce’s firearms, ammunition and other property, including computers, binoculars, scopes and books.

What started this? Bruce is a model citizen with no criminal record, and has an excellent community and business reputation. But as a hunter and gunsmith from northern Ontario, Bruce Montague has boldly and actively opposed the Liberal government’s illegitimate gun law by nonviolent public protest and peaceful non-compliance.

Why would someone intentionally challenge the law? Bruce is a man of character, integrity and conviction. Rather than comply with an unjust law, he has chosen to challenge it in court at enormous personal cost.

Why should you join Bruce Montague’s fight to strike down the Firearms Act? Because his fight is your fight:

An estimated 90% of firearms owners in Canada are in violation of the Firearms Act regulations due to ignorance, negligence, or civil disobedience.
If the police did a raid on your house today, you would likely be charged with one or more criminal offenses under the Firearms Act.
An anonymous “firearms threat” tip from a personal opponent can lead to an unannounced police raid on your home.
The goal of the Firearms Act is to gradually eliminate private ownership of guns. We either fight the gun law now, or one-by-one firearm owners will be hunted down by its complexity and harsh penalties.
Because of the multitude of firearms charges, Bruce’s defense team will be able to challenge the constitutionality of all the major areas of the firearms act, potentially gutting it.
Bruce is backed by legal experts who are prepared to make the first serious charter challenge of the Firearms Act to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Bruce is putting his neck on the line to defend our freedoms. Now it’s our turn to put our money on the line to support Bruce. To fight this to the Supreme Court, Bruce is anticipating 3-5 years of personal stress and an expected legal bill over $300,000.

Let’s do our part to raise funds in our clubs, associations and businesses. Ask for generous donations.

Please send cheques payable to the: “Bruce Montague Scrap C-68 Fund”
RR#2, Site 211, Box 7, Dryden, Ontario, P8N 2Y5
http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Let’s be clear about one thing right up front. Our opposition to the Firearms Act has nothing to do with guns. It’s not about hunting or target shooting, although we engage in both. It’s not about handguns or shotguns, or which one is a “good gun” and which one is not.

It has to do with one thing and one thing only: Rights. Innate fundamental human rights. Rights paid for, in full, with the blood of the fallen men and women to whom we justly pay tribute every November 11th.

Rights each and every human being is born with.

These rights are NOT granted by government, any government. These rights predate government. Cave men and space men are all born with the same inalienable rights, namely the right to life, and the right to own the implements (private property) required to feed, clothe and defend that life.

Government’s only legitimate role is in protecting those inalienable rights.

The Firearms Act clearly violates the rights every Canadian is born with. Rights supposedly protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Sean Stokholm

If by “cave men” you mean prehistoric humans (who were largely hunters and gatherers), then you’re wrong. While it’s true they were fiercely egalitarian, at the same the rights of the individual were a relatively foreign concept – the survival and prosperity of the group were what counted the most, symbolically and practically.

Also, would you please cite the passage from the Charter that identifies “defence” as an individual right in Canada? I think you might be confusing our nation with the USA.

While you’re at it, explain to me why folks like you never get so worked up about having to register your property, children, and vehicles? Honestly, you’d be easier to take seriously if you showed some consistency in that respect.

Finally, tell me more about life in space! While I’m probably better versed in human history and modern political philosophy than yourself, you’ve got me at a disadvantage on the whole non-earth sociopolitical thing.

Greg P.

Defense of Person

Self-Defence Against Unprovoked Assault
… / Extent of justification.

34. (1) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted without having provoked the assault is justified in repelling force by force if the force he uses is not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm and is no more than is necessary to enable him to defend himself.

(2) Every one who is unlawfully assaulted and who causes death or grievous bodily harm in repelling the assault is justified if

(a) he causes it under reasonable apprehension of death or grievous bodily harm from the violence with which the assault was originally made or with which the assailant pursues his purposes; and
(b) he believes, on reasonable grounds, that he cannot otherwise preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm. [R.S. c.C-34, s.34.]

Self-Defence In Case Of Aggression.

35. Every one who has without justification assaulted another but did not commence the assault with intent to cause death or grievous bodily harm, or has without justification provoked an assault on himself by another, may justify the use of force subsequent to the assault if

(a) he uses the force

(i) under reasonable apprehension of death or grievous bodily harm from the violence of the person whom he has assaulted or provoked, and
(ii) in the belief, on reasonable grounds, that it is necessary in order to preserve himself from death or grievous bodily harm;

(b) he did not, at any time before the necessity of preserving himself from death or grievous bodily harm arose, endeavour to cause death or grievous bodily harm; and
(c) he declined further conflict and quitted or retreated from it as far as it was feasible to do so before the necessity of preserving himself from death or grievous bodily harm arose. [R.S. c.C-34, s.35.]

Provocation.

36. Provocation includes, for the purposes of sections 34 and 35, provocation by blows, words or gestures. [R.S. c.C-34, s.36.]

Preventing Assault
… / Extent of justification.

37. (1) Every one is justified in using force to defend himself or any one under his protection from assault, if he uses no more force than is necessary to prevent the assault or the repetition of it.

(2) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to justify the wilfull infliction of any hurt or mischief that is excessive, having regard to the nature of the assault that the force used was intended to prevent. [R.S. c.C-34, s.37.]

You’re welcome

Sean Stokholm

That’s the criminal code, not the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Pook claimed to include the right to defence. There is the right to *security*, but that’s not the same thing.

Nice try, but no thanks from me!

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

+++ …”the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which Pook claimed to include the right to defence…” +++

Wrong. I never claimed that it was in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Infact, I said that it was “not written down.”

+++ “There is the right to *security*,..” +++

Question: How do you have security if you do not have the tools to enforce it?

Oh, please Mr. Badman, don’t hurt me. I have the right to security!

… because Mr. 9mm here says I have the right to security! ;-)
Greg P.

Ah. Not in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

THAT definitive document. And if its not in there, then the right must not exist then? Is that your educated stab at it?

i think you could benefit from reading up on the recent verdict of Basil Parasiris Mr. Parasiris shot and killed an a Laval police detective who was executing a “no-knock” search warrant at his home — a warrant only later determined to be illegal.

You can read up on that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_Parasiris

On Friday June 13th, 2008, the jury reached a not guilty verdict on the charge of first degree murder of a police officer. The jury suggested that there was reasonable ground to believe that Mr. Parasiris acted in self defense believing the police officers whom he thought were attackers were going to harm his wife and children while the Judge deemed that the search warrant which was used to enter Mr. Parasiris’s suburban home was illegal

Isn’t it funny how the judge and the jury sure thought that their is a right to self-defense? Enough maybe even to set a new precedent?

Greg P.

+++While you’re at it, explain to me why folks like you never get so worked up about having to register your property, children, and vehicles? Honestly, you’d be easier to take seriously if you showed some consistency in that respect.

Another read you need to have a look into, speaking of rights that should have been entrenched into the constitution, is property rights.

I’m a big supporter of the APRI. http://www.apri.ca/

So, yeah, us poor, dumb good ‘ol boys DO get irritated at other abuses of seizure of property without restitution.

But mark my words sir. We ARE changing that in Canada.
Greg P.

But where on topic of guns, we try not to litter the ongoing dialogue with personal insults and advertisements about our educational histories.

We might encourage you to observe the same courtesy.
Nimrod45

Read Section 26 of the Charter of Rights.

Fighting the Firearms Act is almost a full-time job. We’ll get around to those other things when we’re done with this.

http://www.calgarygrit.ca Calgary Grit

How is forcing someone to register their weapons a violation of their rights?

It’s not like the government is banning them from owning the guns. I don’t see how that’s any more a violation of rights than requiring paperwork/licenses/etc for any other piece of property.

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Only a Liberal sycophant would make such a stupid statement. Have you not read the arguments above your posting?

What it boils down to, is the fact that the state is depriving free citizens of the tools used for self defence.

The government has banned guns. It now has a list of who owns them, and it has confiscated them. How much more info do you need to understand the cause and effect here?

Toronto mayor Miller has long advocated total gun prohibition and confiscation. Allan Rock who gave us gun registry under a Liberal regime stated that only “police and military should be allowed guns”.

Nice try, troll.

Lynn

And here I was thinking that you might actually argue that a lot of the people who own guns own them for purposes other than self-defence, such as hunting or sport shooting.

But tools used for self-defence? What is it, exactly, that you need to defend your person from? The threat of England invading?

Is the solution to one gun-toting fellow who decides to shoot up a city street, another gun-toting fellow who decides to fire back? Since when does an escalation of violence solve the problem?

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Luby’s Cafe

On October 16, 1991, Hennard drove his 1987 Ford Ranger pickup truck through the front window of a Luby’s Cafeteria at 1705 East Central Texas Expressway in Killeen, yelled “This is what Bell County has done to me!”, then opened fire on the restaurant’s patrons and staff with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89. He stalked, shot, and killed 23 people and wounded another 20 before committing suicide. About 80 people were in the restaurant at the time. The first victim was Dr. Michael Griffith, a local veterinarian, who ran up to the driver’s side of the pickup truck after it came through the window to offer assistance. During the shooting, Hennard approached Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents. Hupp had actually brought a handgun to the Luby’s Cafeteria that day, but had left it in her vehicle due to the laws in force at the time, forbidding citizens from carrying firearms. According to her later testimony in favor of Missouri’s HB-1720 bill[1] and in general [2][3], after she realized that her firearm was not in her purse, but “a hundred feet away in [her] car”, her father charged at Hennard in an attempt to subdue him, only to be gunned down; a short time later, her mother was also shot and killed. (Hupp later expressed regret for abiding by the law in question by leaving her firearm in her car, rather than keeping it on her person[1].) One patron, Tommy Vaughn, threw himself through a plate-glass window to allow others to escape.[4] Hennard allowed a mother and her four-year-old child to leave. He reloaded several times and still had ammunition remaining when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head after being cornered and wounded by police.[5][6][7]

So, yes, a citzen with a gun CAN stop these horrible shootings.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I’m sorry, but you’re citing that Luby’s Cafe incident as an argument in favour of guns??
Greg P.

Suzanna Gratia Hupp sure does. And Texans sure get it. And 2 Million Canadian firearms owners get it.

Oh wait. Do you fit in that category of people who believe that armed citizens will simply add to the bloodshed?

Cool. Lets examine that point of view in reference to a historical case where the students WERE armed; specifically, the Appalachian School of Law shootings where 43-year-old former student Peter Odighizuwa was stopped mid-spree by armed students.

To no one’s surprise, this story didn’t make the same shocking story that Virginia Tech did. Maybe because their weren’t enough bodies? Maybe because gun owners of America could not be demonized in a sensational anti-gun story?

It never does sell quite as many media ringside seats as a one-sided slaughter. You can read into it yourself here, because it is likely the first time you have ever even heard of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting

Funny how few media outlets actually reported that.

Perhaps you could explain for me why these mass-murder involving guns recurrently occur in gun-free zones?

Greg P.

The fact that you clearly have no clue WHAT the Canadian, Australian, and British governments have done in the pursuit of gun bans makes you a poor candidate for submitting your opinion here.

Call us back after the government seizes $30,000 worth of your personal property without remuneration because it is arbitrarily deemed ‘the drunk driver’s special’, or ‘faster than any citizen needs to drive themselves from A to B.’

Cool Blue

FYI: All those guns in the picture you included in this post, would still require registration.

What the government is proposing is that we stop registering (but continue licensing) unrestricted long-guns (shotguns and rifles) which are mainly used by hunters and farmers.

- restricted/prohibited guns (handguns, assault rifles etc) would still be registered

- if you wanted to possess a long-gun, you would not have to register it BUT you would have to have a license to own it; therefore, police will still be able to search to see if a person owned firearms

E.M.

More than that! I wouldn’t be surprised that most of what’s on the table is prohibited althogether such as large capacity magazines; I see a short barrel and maybe a full auto.

http://www.zychowski.ca Thomas Zychowski

Banned already they would be but the Police needs to scare you so you would lie down like a good dog.

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Statements made prominent Canadian politicians makes it painfully obvious that confiscation is the ultimate aim and the Firearms Act is the leading edge of the slippery slope.

“I came to Ottawa…with the firm belief that the only people in this country who should have guns are police officers and soldiers.” – former Liberal Minister of Justice Allan Rock 1994

“C-68 has little to do with gun control or crime control, but it is the first step necessary to begin the social re-engineering of Canada.” – Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs 1996

“Canada will be one of the first unarmed countries in the World.” – former Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy 1998

“This government does not believe that public safety is enhanced by carrying weapons. In fact, it has been a long-standing Canadian government practice to discourage the use of personal defense weapons.” – former Liberal Minister of Justice Anne McLellan 1999

Given the content of the above statements, if there is a Canadian citizen that is not worried about the short and long term objectives of this federal Liberal government, they have their head strategically placed where there is no danger of seeing the sun.

The track record of the federal Liberals as it relates to telling the Canadian public the truth is abysmal. We live in a country where we have had broken promises weekly from our politicians. Remember “Scrap the GST” in the 1994 Liberal policy ‘Red Book’ presented by Jean Chretien. What a joke! There are so many broken promises behind the back deceptions and outright lies from the Liberal government that it is impossible for the Canadian people to trust them. Would you trust the Liberals on their no confiscation promises given their track record? I think not.

The Western part of Canada has experienced the Made in Ottawa Lies all to often. It dates back to Trudeau. Ask any politically-minded Westerner and you’ll hear that Trudeau is the most hated Canadian politician. He has also the only one to wave his middle finger at concerned Canadian citizens. Under Chretien came the ‘Lieberals’ as they are so commonly referenced in the Canadian media.

First lie that couldn’t go so easily undetected was spotted by RCMP Commissioner Murray when he protested in 1997 that the 1993 RCMP figures were grossly exaggerated, did we say exaggerated, I think we meant FORGED. The RCMP commissioner demanded that something must be done to correct the data or remove it from circulation. The CFC was requested to meet over the concern of where the problem occurred, yet they were unwilling. Currently, there is a forgery investigation against Allan Rock, the Justice Minister at the time.

http://www.lufa.ca/confiscation.asp

Sean Stokholm

Um, the Liberals are not the governing party of Canada right now. Haven’t been for some time. Trudeau’s dead. Has been for some time. Personally, I blame Laurier for everything wrong with country. And don’t even get me started about that sonovabich Tupper.

(Unless you’re talking about space society again. Which I’ve long suspected is a Liberal wasteland.)

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

No, the Liberals are not the government today. Thankfully! However, it is only a matter of time before the come into power again. That is the nature of politics. It swings back and forth.

Given half a chance they would outlaw and confiscate every gun in the country.

That is why we must kill the gun registry now. If we do, they won’t dare bring it back, but if not, they will not hesitate to expand its powers.

Senate Bill S-5 is not perfect, but it is better than what we have now. I support it.

Greg P.

That is where our opinions must slightly diverge my friend.

S-5 is worse than the current firearms legislation for either gun control advocates OR gun rights advocates. Neither want to see it happen. It is a lame duck piece of legislation that guts Garry B’s eloquent private member’s C-301.

Unfortunately for him, the PMO might have a vested political interest in decentralizing control of registries to the individual provinces.

Make NO mistake, S-5 does NOT abolish the long gun registry. Its provisions make it paperless, and controlled at the personal volition of the provincial CFO. For gun owners in Ontario and Quebec, this will be a travesty.

Gun control advocates what will occur conversely in the more libertarian provinces.

Smithers

Does C-301 either. What does C-301′s amendment to FA Sec 23 (Sec 10 of C -301) differ from S-5. In both cases, the transaction is reported to the Canada Firearms Program. My fear, is that a good deal of gun owners will still be “criminals,” by failing to properly report a transaction. The current system with an “active” registry at least reminds the seller the need to use the proper channels.

http://www.zychowski.ca Thomas Zychowski

Forged is right if they used yearly statistics and excluded US firearms and all the suicides we wouldn’t have much gun crime in Canada.

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

+++ I’m sorry, but you’re citing that Luby’s Cafe incident as an argument in favour of guns?? +++

Yes, if they are not prevented by state laws forcing them to leave their guns locked in the car instead of being allowed to carry.

Instead of shooting the gunman, she was forced to hide under a table while her mother died in her arms.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I meant to imply that fewer guns in a society might result in fewer murder sprees in the first place. We do seem to be ahead of our American friends in that regard.

Greg P.

Are we?

It seems to me that we have more than our fair share of that social decay. Let me ask; do you think people engage in these shootings to indulge urges with guns, or for the 15 minutes of media fame?

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

On balance it seems the Dawson shooter was more interested in killing people than in publicising it.

Greg P.

Yet he picked the most public venue possible to go off the rails.

Don’t get me wrong here….I don’t believe a sane person, short of a team of psychiatrists, could even guess at his real motives.

But I don’t buy that he simply wanted to kill people.

He had that deficit in his personality that drove him to attention gaining extremes such as his vampire-freaks.com web profile.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

You’re right that it’s idle to speculate about his motives, but I think he attacked Dawson because he had it in for Dawson students. Not to say he wasn’t a major narcissist, but he certainly did have a gun fetish. IIRC that’s why he was kicked out of the Reserves.
Greg P.

Before posting further, let me first say thanks for your most civil and considered debate. This is healthy I think for Canadians.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Likewise!

Nimrod45

Try reading Dr. John Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime”. In it, he finds that in US States that pass “Shall Issue” CCW laws the confrontational crime rate drops on an average of 24%.

Most, if not all, shooting sprees take place in state-mandated “gun free zones”. This is why you don’t see many mass murders at NRA conventions, gun shows, or police stations.

Bob

I would like to add to the argument that more guns makes for a more complex problem. In the example you gave the students came out as heroes for using their weapons. It should be noted that the police could have mistaken them as the gunmen. It is not your job nor those students jobs to take matters into their own hands. There is laws against vigilantism. I cannot recall from memory what high school kid was killed when they brought a toy gun to school but I know it caused much outcry.

Mr. Pook I understand that you want some level of self protection. Everyone has a right to defend themselves but that right does not mean using a gun. Perhaps you have no faith in police and the social contract but hand guns and other types prohibited by the law should be confiscated with or without the Gun Registry.

Greg P.

Sorry Bob, but that’s just plain, old fashioned fear mongering.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14817480/detail.html
Armed guard stopped shooter in church

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting
armed students stopped shooter in school

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-loc-pharmacy-robber-killed-040109,0,550904.story
This last week, news in Florida disclosed that an armed pharmacist stooped an armed robber in store

I could go on and on with fact to match your fiction and conjecture. Its easier to do than you could possibly believe, because for EVERY state that has opened up concealed carry laws and repealed duty to retreat statutes, there has been a massive downturn in crime.
Greg P.

Just a question?

When did you become so socially neutered that you surrendered your ability to defend yourself to strangers? Sorry. That notion is just somewhat funny to me -not in the comical sense, but in that repugnant, morally bankrupt sense reserved for cowardice feebly masked in morality.

You really need to read “Excusing the men who ran away” on this site” He writes about the movie made about Ecole Polytechnique, and men who similarly felt no duty to respond. That’s right. They bravely walked out and left those women to die at the hands of Gamil Gharbi.

Here’s a teaser for you Bob….

+++Whenever I write about this issue, I get a lot of emails from guys scoffing, “Oh, right, Steyn. Like you’d be taking a bullet. You’d be pissing your little girlie panties,” etc. Well, maybe I would. But as the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle put it:

“When we say ‘we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances,’ we make cowardice the default position.”

I prefer the word passivity—a terrible, corrosive, enervating passivity. Even if I’m wetting my panties, it’s better to have the social norm of the Titanic and fail to live up to it than to have the social norm of the Polytechnique and sink with it. M Villeneuve dedicates his film not just to the 14 women who died that day but also to Sarto Blais, a young man at the Polytechnique who hanged himself eight months later. Consciously or not, the director understands what the heart of this story is: not the choice of one man, deformed and freakish, but the choice of all the others, the nice and normal ones. He shows us the men walking out twice—first, in real time, as it were; later, Rashômon-style, from the point of view of the women, in the final moments of their lives. —

Mr Kilroi

Sean Stokholm.. While your leading paragraph is debatable, the rest of your post is nonsense. I would point out section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Security of the person is the right to defend yourself. A right which has been upheld in the SCC. It is also a right which is held at Common Law. We also have the right to keep arms in our defence as per the English Bill of Rights 1689. This right also survives into our Charter viz sec. 26. 26. The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed as denying the existence of any other rights or freedoms that exist in Canada. When we confederated in 1867 we did not create a bill of Rights like our neighbours to the south because we did not need one, the long held Common law rights were still in force as they are today here and in England. Indeed The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution did not repeal this right.

As for the registering of property, there is no law compelling anyone to register their children or their car(s) nor any other personal belonging. The only time you need to register your car is if you intend to drive on public roads. You register your children if you intend for them to have any benefit of public programs. When was the last time you had to give personal and intimate details of your life to register a car. Do you need to take a course on parenting before having children? Do you need a licence to have them? You like so many other people see firearms as having a life of their own. With the ability to influence the human mind. They are inanimate objects, left on a table they will remain there time in memoriam until a human changes that state. I will assume you are familiar with the organization known as MADD. How is it that they have figured out that alcohol and cars are not responsible for the carnage on our highways? In fact they lobbied long and hard to have the human that consumed the alcohol and drove the car locked up.

I find it astonishing that people that are ordinarily intelligent and logical lose their capacity to engage either when it comes to this topic. People who are fed garbage information from the media and various political parties, Who do not know nor understand the firearms laws are wound up about a bill that would eliminate a useless long gun registry and redundant and costly paper work. The truth of the matter is that an enquiry made to the registry will only show “registered” firearms at an address not the illegal ones. If the registry was that valuable then the police should be able to walk into a crack house or gang clubhouse and not need to worry because there are no guns registered there? please!.

You claim an expertise in human history and modern political philosophy? Then I put it to you what happens after civilian disarmament? A genocide usually follows. If the registry is not about disarmament then why does the government need to know? What do you call the type a state where the police and military are the only ones with guns? A Police State! Just to cap this all off. There are 7 million law abiding firearms owners in Canada with 26 million firearms(UN figure) They didn’t shoot nor kill anyone today. So when you know as much about the firearms act and have had to deal with it then you can have in informed opinion about any bill to change it.

cgnnightmare

On the money here.

Pay attention people.

Dave Jackson

This article makes no sense. First of all, while the gun license will tell police which homes contain legal guns, they would still have to assume that all homes could contain guns. Secondly, I remember reading an article where the police extolled the virtues of the registry after a local bust. During a drug raid, they recovered several guns which had been stolen from a local resident and were quite proud to have identified the providence of the weapons. In the past, pre-registry, I would assume the guns would have been destroyed. What this piece failed to say was that these guns would now be returned to their rightful owner. My point is that expanding from requiring a license to a full registry has not accomplished anything in terms of public safety.

herringchoker

I think you mean “provenance of the weapons” Dave.

Steve

“That adds up to a staggering 3,438,729 queries from police officers last year. It’s hard to imagine a federal database more intensively mined.”

What on Earth are you on about, an automatic check of the system is done during routine police look-ups of CPIC! Do you seriously think that the police specifically check this database alone this many times a year?

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

Talk about a fishing expedition!

People who check the medical records of celebrities get fired from their hospital jobs, but it’s OK for state law enforcement to check EVERYONE they talk with for legally owned firearms? How is this right?

One other thing. Registry lists make great shopping lists for criminals. There have been a number of gun owners who have been targeted for specific guns they owned. How did people know? One guy had his collection hidden inside finished walls of his home – they found them!

John.K

Why on earth would he wall up his collection? Obviously he wasn’t keeping them on hand so he could defend himself in a home invasion…and I doubt if that was his interpretation of “secure storage”.

Nimrod45

Auditor General Sheila Fraser stated before the Justice Committee that these numbers are an “indication of activity” not of efficiency or effectiveness. In other words, it’s not much more than bureaucratic busywork – meaningless mumbo-jumbo.
http://www.zychowski.ca Thomas Zychowski

Did I forget the hairdryer that got registered as a weapon.

First you assume the registry is accurate which it is not. The agents make mistakes and then those mistakes are used against the registrant as evidence.

If I was a officer I would use it, an extra tool.

The point is they do not use it for those reasons.

I will paste the first comment.

Yes, I’m sure that the police chiefs would like to keep the long-gun registry.

They would also like to be able to wiretap your phone, your cell phone, and your email accounts. They would also like to be able to search your home, your place of work, your business, and your person without needing a search warrant. They would also like to be able to arrest you for any whim that comes to them without need of an arrest warrant.

Would all those people here who are advocating for the registry also advocate for all these other tools that the police could use to make their jobs easier?

As far as confiscation is concerned. It is already happening. Shortly after registration started, some guns were reclassifed and banned. Now they had lists of every owner and began confiscating them.

Everything they have told you inorder to sell the long-gun registry to the public has been a lie.

Time to end this lie, and support Senate Bill S-5 to get rid of the registry, once and for all.

John.K

April 3 (Bloomberg) — A gunman opened fire at the offices of a refugee aid organization in Binghamton, New York, today, killing 13 people and taking dozens hostage, said media reports.

He was armed with a rifle…..

Bob

Nice irrational post, John!

A terrible story thrown into the mix to confuse, panic, and horrify. That’s the tactic used to get the registry born in the first place.

Was it registered? And how would it have made any difference to the story?

Mental issues?
Stolen?

You are using circular logic, if you think that a registry would have prevented this crime.
http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

There were only 12 killed – #13 was the gunman.

Too bad there wasn’t one citizen there with a gun who could have stopped him before he got to #2

Sad day.

William Ouellette

In re: the gun registry.
My Father was a policeman and he didn’t need a gun registry. He approached every dispute as if one party was armed.
I await the knife registry which will also solve a problem caused by inept or lazy policing..
The onus thus far on gun owners is “guilty until proven innocent”.
When even registered owners are persecuted for mistakes by bureaucrats then I have no confidence in this tool.
Dave Christianson

In a perfect world (one where a police officer could rely on the database being complete and accurate), a gun registry might serve a usefull purpose. Unfortuneatle this is NOT the case. If I were a police officer (and I wanted to stay alive) I would simply make the assumption that EVERY residence contains guns….full stop !

Nimrod45

No, it wouldn’t, because it still wouldn’t contain a list of the guns in criminal hands…

John.K

There are about 60000 police in Canada. So 10,000 checks per day is one check per officer every 6 days. Sounds reasonable.

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

+++ “There are about 60000 police in Canada. So 10,000 checks per day is one check per officer every 6 days. Sounds reasonable.” +++

Only if all 60,000 were working the streets.

How many of those 60K are working in administration, as pilots, undercover, Captains, etc.

I would bet that the average street cop is doing CPIC checks which automatically hit the gun registry computers, about 50 times per day (12 hour shift. = 4 per hour).

Jim Rogers

I bet that police procedures require them to check the registry each time they go to a house/ private residence, regardless of the reason. And I assume the checks against the hand gun registry is counted as well, so every search is counted as two. And the police should assume that a deadly weapon may be at each place they go and act accordingly.

My biggest problem is that the government has assumed that gun owners are guilty or are criminals rather than property owners. A car is licensed so they can use the vehicle on public lands but a collector who hangs his property on the wall (without firing pins) is deemed as dangerous and must register his property. Perhaps more crimes would be stopped if all computers, cell phones and iPods had to be registered so the owner can be found.
John.K

That math implies there are only 200 street cops in Canada….10,000/50=200.

Boy, those guys are sure busy!

Gaunilon

I see my comment got deleted…twice. Apparently Geddes is a little sensitive at having his intelligence called into question.
Liane

I would like to know out of all of those ithousands of nquiries the police send to the registry ,,, how many of those guns that have been registered end up being used in a criminal act… my guess is few to none ,, you know why ….. criminals do not register their guns.
E.M.

So with approximately 3,500,000 CPIC / Registry enquiries per year, that would be about 14 million enquiries over the years 2004 to 2008. Those happen to be the years for which stats of police deaths are kept at http://www.odmp.org/canada/. During those four years 12 officers died by gun fire. Of these, a total of 7 occurred at a residential property. If one excludes the 4 officers killed at Mayerthorpe (a complex situation,) that leaves 3 over a four year period that died while attending at a residence – after 14 million registry checks!

The gun registry did not prevent these deaths. Neither Is there any evidence presented in the article that the gun registry saved any police officers’ lives. After all, if one goes on the assumption that there could be a gun at a residence, a check is irrelevant! On the other hand, who would trust a negative result, knowing that there could be a firearm anyways? By the way all other deaths in the line of duty over the fours years are: accidental 8, illness (mainly heart attack) 5, vehicular assault 3, knife 1, assault 1.

http://www.zychowski.ca Thomas Zychowski

You have to sympathize with a person doing their dangerous duty in order to protect us and wanting to use every available tool for the job. But to alienate a large section of the population and single them out like this is doltish. The Police are creating more work for themselves hurting the very people they are sworn to protect. To use these tools in the way they are being used is wrong and the Police forces know this.

We are giving up are rights for nothing it starts here and where will it end.

http://www.JimsFishing.com Jim Pook

+++ “Magna Carta has never applied in Canada.” +++

As you will note from the ‘reasons for judgment’ of the BC “Court” of Appeal, the highest alleged “court” of British Columbia is of the UN-learned opinion that our Liberties and Freedoms, as decreed in Magna Carta [by four Kings] as ever lasting, are amendable to simple legislation [Crown statutes].

Is that really true? Doesn’t legislation get its “magical authority” from Legislatures who were in turn granted authority [license] by the EXACT same Crown that assented [four times no less] to Magna Carta as the ever lasting SUPREME LAW? See the problem yet?

The Magna Carta is not just “a legally binding contract” between Freemen and the “Royal Sovereign”; rather it was/is ALSO an “Holy edict” or “Blood Covenant” between the English church, or congregation, as represented by the common law barons [as the trustee in trust of the "common" property of England] and the Monarch of England, and therefore has the highest authority in our Commonwealth. It is an actual constitution, as opposed to something written up by an alleged government, openly rejected by the people, and simply having the word “constitution” written at the top of the page.
The Magna Carta was passed and assented to by Crown AND of course British Parliament (see Sir Edward Coke – 1628 [Lord Campbell's Lives, supra, vol. 2 p.13]) on more than one occasion, and adopted into the expanded Constitution of the United Kingdom. Canada’s BNA Act provided for “a Constitution similar in Principle to that of United Kingdom” and thereby adopted the same constitutional principles. Magna Carta is our ONLY real Constitution, as it is the only document directly agreed to by the people, and intended to “last forever” in “all places”. The 1297 [final version] of our Charter records an exchange of goods in sealing the consent of the parties to the terms of the contract.

Clearly, our Magna Carta was and always will be an integral part of Canadian Constitutional Law, as further witnessed by section 26 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was passed as “the Supreme Law” of Canada by an act of the Parliament of England, signed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the will and consent of the government of Canada. Section 26 recognizes the existence of those “other rights” [or pre-existent rights] which we inherited [by eternal preservation under treaty] via our “Mother of Constitutions” – as the Magna Carta is often referred to. It is your birthright! It is FOR EVER the ‘law of the land’! And we are commissioned, by Royal edict, to preserve protect and if necessary DEFEND it by force. This is, then, your expressed right and lawful authority to enforce the Supreme Law if there is evidence of its breach or infringement.

Further to the substantiation of this fact, we have the BC Court of Appeal, in 1949, stating quite clearly [what history already bore witness to] that Magna Carta is indeed part of our common law and IS the Constitution AND SUPREME LAW of Canada:

= = = = = = = = = = =

“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or by the hand of the divinity itself: and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1775
sf

Those numbers are whacked. There seems to be a disproportionate number of checks in Ontario and BC. And it is not used much at all in Quebec compared to everywhere else. Also, Yukon and Nunavut have similar populations, but you’d never know by those numbers.
E.M.

The premise of the article is flawed. Almost the entire logic is based on the idea that if something is used a lot than it must be beneficial, desirable and essential. Then why do they chase after pot users (maybe billions of tokes a year) and copyright violators (billions of downloads a year) and so on???
Jim Rogers

First question is whether these are only searches of the long gun registry or the handgun registry (which is 40 years old) as well?

Why do the RCMP not access the registry in Nunavut? Could it be because almost every household has a long gun of some sort? Could it also be because only a fool would walk along the shore during the fall without a gun, because you are a meal. In may younger days, field surveyors and field geologists carried hand guns in a holster when in the bust, since your two hands were free. No longer, but some company guns are left leaning against a rock. But I also know of people who had polar bears tearing into their tents or have been mauled by a barren land grizzly.

Of course the police access the data base, but the better question is whether it has helped. In Mayerthorpe the Mounties may have checked the data base and felt safe because they had all the registered guns, but criminals don’t usually worry about rules. If the police do not enter a dangerous area and assume that a knife or gun or baseball bat is present, those officers deserve better training.

Many prairie kids shoot rodents or for food. But the registration of a .22 single shot may cost more than the gun and the serial number may have worn off years before. So the politicians in the three cities have made these kids into criminals. I thought our justice system presumed that everyone is law abiding until proven otherwise but the registry assumes that everyone with a gun is a criminal, guilty until proven innocent. Also, the law appears to give law enforcement the right to look for unregistered guns, even on the property of the owner but Section 8 of the Canadian Charter says everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure. Canada continues to give away our rights and freedoms, Harper just wants to give one back.
suder

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Senate finds that the long gun registry is an invaluable tool in the hands of police, that it offers them an added layer of security especially in domestic disputes. Who would deny them that extra layer of security? Geddes raises some good points and even if it can be shown that the registry has the potential to save lives it will never give way to a cultural issue. I almost believe that this Bill is designed to fail or at least hoped against. If that is true then gun registry opponents are just being played for their votes. I hope there is something more than crap politics here.

Jim Rogers

How does the registry give an added layer of security? It may tell them that a long gun is there but will not tell them if an unregistered gun is in the building. The police will treat all visits the same way.

BTW, more people get murdered each year in licensed motor vehicles than by people with guns. Most recent gun crimes are with unregistered hand guns. In Canada, the hand gun registry began in 1892 with full registry of hand guns in 1934 and automatic firearms in 1952.

http://deleted suder

Some of the most dangerous calls the police respond to are domestic disputes. I think most people are law abiding with no illegal weapons in their posession. Maybe someone with a legally registered firearm, for some reason or another finds his world starting to fall apart, a call is made and the police know that there is a weapon that has to be secured. This guy has never been in trouble in his life, but today he is unpredictable. Maybe they have to approach every case with the same caution but I think knowledge of a definite weapon is important.

Les

I’ve owned guns as long as I can remember. I have no qualms with the gun registery per say. No one has ever bothered me about ownership. As long as the registry is secure from criminal intent the police need this tool to safely conduct their investigations.

http://www.zychowski.ca Thomas Zychowski

If only they would do that there would be no problems.

Chris

The police use the gun registry as a tool in their work. It is a policy of most police forces to input into their computers and in contacting their dispatchers for any information on a given address. Every time a police officer attends a house call in the City of Thunder Bay Ontario, they retreave information from the registry. This is for every domistic call that they are called to, it is not on a whim, but policy for the police force.

But any police officer worth their badge would not go just on the information from the registry, every police officer across this country (R.C.M.P. O.P.P., City Officers) assume that if they are going into a residence, that there are firearms present. No officer would assume that if the registry states that there are no guns registered then all is good and they don’t have to worry about it.

The problem with gun crime in this country is, that the first thing lawyers do in a firearms related crime is to plea bargan away the firearms charge. If there was an automatic five year sentence for any firearms related crime in this country, then things might change. But since you can get more time for driving drunk than armed robbery, what is the deterent.

Next, our Customs officers should have the hardware to look for illegal importing of firearms into this country and not just be glorified tax collectors. With the majority of hand guns from crime being imported from the states, there are technologies, that can detect the presence of firearm residue.

Lastly, the Gun registry was formed more as a political jesture. At the time of it’s formation, New Bruswick was rumbling about seperation from the country as was Quebec. It is amazing how a few thousand jobs and over three billion dollars will quite that type of talk.