Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Long-gun registry saved

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 6:54pm - 0 Comments

As projected, the House of Commons has approved a motion of the public safety committee to defeat Bill C-391, by a margin of 153 to 151.

The Liberals and NDP have issued official responses. The Prime Minister said the following to reporters after the vote.

After 15 years, opposition to the long-gun registry is stronger in this country than it has ever been. With the vote tonight, its abolition is closer than it has ever been. The people of the regions of this country are never going to accept being treated like criminals and we will continue our efforts until this registry is finally abolished.

Tags: C-391, firearms, gun control, gun registry, Jack Layton, long gun registry, Michael Ignatieff, Stephen Harper

More by Aaron Wherry

Emily

Congratulations for your coverage on this, and your calling of the result!
Emily

As for Harper, and the gang that couldn't shoot straight….you lost the gunfight boyz, so hang em up and go home.

Mark R

Nope. Battle lost. The war will continue.

Emily

Go back to plowing….it's over.

Mark R

Stay classy Emily.

Emily

It's what gunslingers did when they lost a gunfight. Went back to something they knew how to do.
john g

It's what gunslingers did when they lost a gunfight.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. I mean, if they lost the gunfight…they're dead, right?
Emily

LOL depends on if they got shot in the gun hand, or the gut or chest.

Reverend_Blair

Er…I don't know many farmers who even own ploughs, or even plows, any more. I still know a couple who summer fallow, using cultivators, rod weeders, and harrows, but even that is old technology.

I suggest that the farmers go back to looking at how Harper is screwing them on the Wheat Board and assistance after having their crops washed away this year. Is having to register a gun more important than making a living?

Emily

In 1810 they used plows. Which is where this whole topic belongs.
Reverend_Blair

Harper seems to prefer the 1810 version of looking after farmers too, which is to say, "Not at all."
Emily

Exactly…. with a mule and a plow facing global agribusiness.

Richard

Just like the separatists in Quebec, Stephen Harper is unable to accept a democratic result. The will of the majority is meaningless to him.

Orson Bean

Funny you say that. My reaction, reading the quote Wherry provided, was that Harper sounded a lot like Jacques Parizeau on referendum night in 1995. Except that Harper was probably sober today, and he didn't slag non-white, non-pure laine residents of Quebec.

Mark

Harper doesn't need booze to channel Parizeau's anger.

Dave

They lost the battle, and the Conservative Party of Canada Fund couldn't possibly be any happier. Keep hitting the Angry Button.

Emily

Money without votes doesn't get them a majority.

Orson Bean

To steal a turn of phrase from Gore Vidal, unless Iggy gets photographed walking out of a morgue zipping up his fly, I don't see how the CPC could possibly get a majority next election. Harper seems to be doing his utmost to alienate every Red Tory out there. And I just don't think there are enough firearms enthusiasts and census-haters to replace all the Red Tories who have been bled out of the CPC support base over the last 4 years.
Emily

Well, they say govts defeat themselves….it's just I've never seen a govt as keen on doing themselves in as the Cons appear to be.

It's like they go out of their way to find people to alienate.
Orson Bean

It is — and the only explanation I can think of is that Harper became so enamoured of retail and wedge politics that he sort of lost sight of the ball. Personally, I think sometimes a politician can benefit from a wedge issue, but that's not the be-all and end-all of political success. I think Harper became so enthralled with what, e.g., John Howard pulled off in Australia that Harper came to believe that seeking out and exploiting wedge issues is all you need to do.
MostlyCivil

You're going straight to hell for repeating that Vidal chestnut. And I laughed so hard at the mental image, I'm calling shotgun. A registered shotgun.
Orson Bean

Nope. But it gets us great big campaign billboards in Vancouver Quadra when there's no election in sight. Just to utterly confuse us ordinary folks.

Jan

Who are the people of the regions?

Emily

I dunno. We used to have a country until Harper came along.
Reverend_Blair

I'm a people of a region. Harper can kiss my fat, hairy butt.
Dave

Everyone! I can't think of a person in Canada who doesn't also live in a "region".

brooster

Already, Harper's stubborn persistence and apparent refusal to brook any any compromise on the substance of the registry's structure or requirements sounds weirdly like the separatists' obsessive determination to pursue their goal repeatedly until they get the right answer.

Will we now start to hear Cons debating the creation of "favourable conditions"?

Reverend_Blair

I think this is what is really going to hurt Harper. Both Layton and Ignatieff have said they want to fix the problems with the registry. Duceppe has said he'll look at their proposals. Harper isn't looking to fix the problems though. Instead he wants to play wedge politics. I think that's going to become increasingly obvious over the coming months.

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com/ Scott_Tribe

Funny thing is: the latest polls show support for the registry is increasing, not decreasing.

IF you think it's so important Harper, have some guts and make it an official government bill, rather then trying to sneakily pass it by a sham Private Members Bill, and then declare it a vote of confidence. If you think it's a winning majority government issue for you, this should be a no -brainer for you.

Mike T.

What on earth makes you think the truth is an impediment to anything Harper is willing to say.
Mark R

Yes I agree. I hope they make it a vote of confidence by stuffing it in an omnibus bill.
2 years of this minority gov. is enough for me.

Harvey Mushman

Well if it does get lumped into a confidence vote, you can be assured the outcome will be quite different.

I expect Iggy will prove true to form, turn tail and run as fast as he can from an election.

Phil_King

"…Funny thing is: the latest polls show support for the registry is increasing, not decreasing…"

That's the thing about the polling of issues. It can take the public a while to absorb all the discussion.

When they do though, the opinions in the center change, sometimes left, sometime right, but they do change and this speaks to the need not to rush bills through if we want an honest assessment of public opinion.
jmw

Gary Breukwitz's bill C 301 was presented as a gov't. bill. All caucuses were whipped and required to vote against scrapping the registry. It has been this way for 15 years. The PMB was in the hope that the vote were not be whipped and MP's could vote the will of their consituents. Didn't happen.

catherine

Harper thinks being required to register a gun is being treated like a criminal? Maybe Harper plans to save all Canadian car owners next.

Harvey Mushman

If having your car licensed allowed police to march into your house and search it without a warrant…or waltz in and seize your car because you forgot to renew your plate sticker, or seize your car because it wasn't locked when you parked it…then on top of that….charge you with a criminal offense for the above infractions…I expect you'd feel treated like a criminal as well.
jmw

Catherine,
You clearly have no understanding of Harper's comments or of Bill C68.

brooster

Harper: "After 15 years, opposition to the long-gun registry is stronger in this country than it has ever been."

While I question this statement even in the short run, I think the numbers will go against him in the longer term. Hunters & anglers admit that their numbers are decreasing year over year, as fewer young people take up those recreational pursuits. And it well known that the number of farms and farm families is, sadly, in decline. While I certainly don't celebrate those trends, they don't bode well for the size of the constituency Harper claims to represent on the long gun registration.

Orson Bean

As a friend of mine once said, "catch a falling star".
Mike T.

And filling out the forms will get more and more routine. To future generations, NOT filling out a registration for a gun will seem a lot like having a party line telephone.
sursum

Back in the 90's Harper voted twice to support the registry but got the message from the Alliance/Reform Alberta based mafia telling him if he wanted to hold on to his seat he better switch his vote. He did and voted against the registry on the 3rd reading. Funny I never hear of those guys flip flopping for only their opponents do apparently.

Dave

Right…. as if there was any risk of him losing his seat in an election (especially since he didn't run again).

DianeG

He keeps trying to make it an urban vs. rural issue, but really, it is not. No matter where you live, if you want to own a deadly weapon you should be responsible enough to licence AND register it. If the process needs to be fixed then fix it, but don't abolish it. HOw often does this need to be said – owning a gun is NOT A RIGHT. This is not the U.S.A.
chet

Given that a common weapon for husbands to abuse their wives is a knife,

when are we going to have kitchen knives registered….

so we can once and for all put an end to spousal abuse.

And if you're not in favour of having knives registered, surely you are "soft on domestic assaults".

Orson Bean

While I favour registering guns, I did think that the LPC talking point about the long gun registry being a "women's safety" issue was a bit much. On the other hand, if somebody wants to show me a real-life example of an actual domestic assault or homicide in Canada being averted as a result of the long-gun registry, I'm willing to keep an open mind about it.

chet

Of course, silly,

everyone knows that once you register a gun, its no longer capable of killing humans.

brooster

Sorry, I think you're in the wrong room. Kindergarten is down the hall and, in your case, on the right.

Phil_King

That's probably a little over the top, I have to agree, but not completely insane.

First of all, the majority of murder suicides are committed with long guns, usually a guy going nuts and killing himself and his family. But domestic problems usually escalate rather that going from zero to full bore in one go, and cops often get called in to a home at least once before things go horribly wrong.

If the man has registered guns and charges of any kind are laid, those guns can be temporarily confiscated and probably saves lives in some cases. Of course people argue he could use a knife, but it takes a heck of a lot more intent to kill yourself and your family that way, whereas a case of beer and some depression meds mixed with gun… not so much.

How do you know he registered all his guns? Well, cops don't just assume everything's accounted for. They do searches after all. That's where the criminal thing comes in. Finding an unregistered gun in a case like that is a good excuse to take the guy in, since it reveals a certain level of anti-social behaviour that can be an indicator of latent intent.

Dave

Just like if you're not in favour of building prisons to house imaginary criminals, you're "soft on crime", or if you don't support Canada getting entangled in any particular military adventure, you don't "support the troops".

chet

By imaginary criminals you mean those convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of committing crimes?

….I can't believe I'm even responding to this…

good to see it's at a plus four right now.

Harvey Mushman

Let's dispense with all this registration and talk of banning guns as David Miller and others have proposed.

Just ban assaults, robberies and murder.

There you go, problem solved.

chet

And today, cops a breathing a little easier, knowing that when a domestic assault is called in on the radio, and they have to attend to a house,

that if there's no "registered" fire arm there, they can breath easy, and waltz into the situation knowing that there isn't a weapon on the scene…since ALL weapons will be registered…

And I for one, would like to thank in advance all those criminals with unlicensed, unregistered firearms, for fully aggreeing to comply with these rules so as to make this system work…

Phil_King

Of course cops don't assume all the guns are accounted for, they still search, and finding unregistered guns GIVES them another way to censure people with large enough anti-social tendencies as to fail to register such a deadly device.

jmw

Phil King,
The Firearms' Licensing Act is the process through which "anti-social" tendencies can be monitored NOT the Registry. Although we have some of the strictest licensing requirements in the world, I believe they can be improved. In the meantime, debate is now shut down, so any thought that the offense might be tied to the person (i.e. through a Gun Offender's registry) and not to the gun (which would make total sense), thanks to the Opposition, is out the window. Now the police can continue confiscating guns from those whose licenses and registrations have expired, and systematically remove long guns from law-abiding citizens. The sole purpose of the Registry is to have an inventory (inaccurate as it is by at least 40%) of which Canadians have legal long guns. I've been waiting for months for someone to give me 1 example of how this actually saves lives. It doesn't and it never will.

Phil_King

I agree that one should only have to register a gun once. It's kind of silly to me that you'd have to register it over and over again. As you say, the point is to have a catalog of the guns in people's hands.

The registry is not acceptable to me as is, but I cannot support getting rid of it altogether. It's a false dichotomy and doesn't fly with me.

That said, in principle, OF COURSE failing to register your gun should result in confiscation and a short term record. The whole point is to track deadly weapons like this, and what other basic consequence would make more sense?

And on another note, let's not focus on strawmen. I've listed at least five good reasons for A registry, though not the current form of it.

chet

Sarcasm aside,

you can bet that long after this issue has faded in the fashionable coffee shops in Toronto and Vancouver,

the visceral anger by those who care deeply in the rural regions of this country will continue to run deep.

Emily

Well then sulk quietly to yourselves, because the rest of us are tired of hearing about it.

chet

Don't speak about the long gun registry on a post about….the long gun registry?

I see our leftist friends' inclination to silence dissenting views continues apace.

Perhaps we should have an "incorrect speech" registry as well, Emily? I suspect you'd be first to line up to be commissar.

Dave

And the viscerally angry will continue to send $20 cheques to the Conservative Party of Canada, just as they have to it and its predecessors for the past 15 years.

Orson Bean

I'm too lazy to look for a link, but I seem to recall that when Jean Charest was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, he announced that the PCs would be opposing a gun-control measure that was being proposed. It was seen in some quarters as a sort of desperate attempt by Charest and the PCs to compete with Reform for the rural vote. Like pretty much everything else that Charest and the PC party did from 1993 to its extinction/merger with Reform, it didn't really succeed or matter much.

jmw

Bill 68 was brought in in 1995 by Allan Rock, then Justice Minister for the Chretien Liberals. Although the unfortunate murder at L'Ecole Polytech were used as the catalyst. I'm still trying to figure out how the registry would ever have stopped Mark Lepine (i.e. registered or unregistered, the gun was still lethal). That part makes no sense. What failed here was why in the world he ever got a license?
The real impetus behind the registry was Allan Rock's" firm belief that only the police and the military should have guns". And as Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs said in 1996 " Bill C-68 has little to do with gun control or reducing crime, but it is the first step necessary in the social re-engineering of Canada." And you're welcome –I wasn't too lazy to look for a link.

Harvey Mushman

Exactly the reason that this whole situation was a "win-win" for Harper.

Keep in mind that with historic low voter turn out, a relatively dedicated group of political activists can have a disproportionate effect on election results. Witness the Tea Party movement in the US. Driven by anger they get the vote out while more complacent voters don't show up at the polls.

You can bet that anti-registry people will turn up to vote because they're passionate about the issue. I suspect that while there are a few passionate "pro" registry voters, it won't be their #1 issue come election time.

Dave

A "loss" is an even better win for the Tories, since a "win" would risk reducing the flow of $20 cheques.

Orson Bean

I agree that it's a great fundraiser tool, and that's why political parties get hooked on issues like this. But the thing is, that's an example of a political party grasping at the obvious and thinking short-term. What the CPC is not considering is how this issue will continue to preoccupy them and take their attention away from other issues that matter to a helluva lot of other people. It's fundraising driving policy, rather than the other way around. The NDP, both provincially (e.g., in BC) and federally has a comparable issue with their official relationship with organized labour — the NDP is addicted to the funding and bodies they get from organized labour, and it puts the NDP in a permanent policy straitjacket — which is one reason, IMO, the NDP will never grow beyond its comparatively narrow base — many people rightly see it as a veiled shill for (mostly public sector) unions.

jmw

You got that right!!

MostlyCivil

"After 15 years,… the vote tonight, its abolition is closer than it has ever been. "

Thought for a moment there that was a quote from the second referendum.

Dave

And for another moment I thought it was a bad translation of René Lévesque from 1980.

Harvey Mushman

I'd much rather see a Criminal Registry. One which gives police the same powers of unwarranted search and seizure towards registered criminals. The ability to walk into a known "gang-banger's" residence and search it for weapons without warrant.

Oh…that would be against his charter rights though wouldn't it? Guess the police will just have to wait until he registers his gun(s) before they can legally exercise those powers.

MostlyCivil

"The ability to walk into a known "gang-banger's" residence and search it for weapons without warrant."

They already do that. Ever heard of an anonymous tip, or a phantom 911 call? Watch the nes for a while, and you'll notice a lot of grow-ups get "discovered" when someone reports "smoke" coming from the house.

Anyway, if you enlarge the provisions of the criminal code to allow random searches of a "gang-bangers" residence, do you imagine those who are so registered will keep their firearms at home? Really?

And please, Gang bangers? Can we update your terminology a bit? Street gangs? Organized crime? Saturday night in Thunder Bay? All better options.

Phil_King

All guns start out as legal guns for the most part. Being able to track where it "fell off the truck" is most certainly a useful tool for police.

Finding unregistered guns give police a reason to put that person on file, ie identifies people unwilling to obey the law of the land.

Knowing that guns are now tracked, a lot of people will be a lot more careful about how they care for and store their guns.

If a registered gun is stolen and the cops catch the thief, being able to track the origin of the gun gives cops a way to track the theft and lay charges against the thief with the help of the legitimate gun owner.

A huge portion of suicides and murder suicides are committed with longuns, and since people don't go crazy all in one go, there are usually signs people can see that give an opportunity to save those lives through confiscation.
jmw

Phil King,
AGAIN, it is the Firearms"s Licensing Act which provides the regulation for gun storage and transport, NOT the Registry. And yes, according to your second line, the police cross-check the Firearms' License with The Registry — anyone without a current registration is then "a criminal" whether they have committed a crime or not.
If a registered gun is stolen — the serial numbers are almost always filed off so no, it is not that easy to catch the thief.
I don't know what you have been drinking, but deaths by long guns have been decreasing for decades, well before the Registry. What they do not have the stats to support is deaths/homicides by illegal guns. The registry has no capacity to track that, since that information is not in the data-base. (i.e. criminals don't register their guns)
And if you think you will stop someone by removing a long gun, from committing suicide, sorry to disappoint you, you won't. There are many other options (tools) for the person who is serious about suicide, and removing their long gun from them will not deter them.

Phil_King

It's clear you me you haven't thought most of your arguments through.

First, regulation of storage and transport isn't the point. The point is the psychological effect of knowing that society is aware of which and how many guns you have. It leads to more consciousness concerning their care.

Failing to register a deadly weapon SHOULD be a criminal infraction. Sorry.

Registered guns are more likely to be reported stolen since if the serial number is still there it can be tracked and if you didn't report it stolen you've been caught commiting a crime. Rightfully so. Thus, increased reports and investigation can help cops track even those guns for which the serial is removed.

As far as suicides and the like, you're ignoring the facts. Most murder suicides involve guns of various types. So all types should be covered. Generating enough intent to murder your family with a knife and then commit suicide is far more unlikely. Besides, people don't suddenly go nuts, it's usually a decline which can be noticed in many ways by different people, and a general state of registering allows others (such as spouses) to report unregistered guns or others catching signs (such as doctors) that can lead to guns being removed where warranted.