The Great Gun Control Debate

[Fishbone Jones]

Baby steps. 

 

[a_majoor]

The next time anyone tries to say the gun registry was useful, throat punch them and force them to read this as they lie on the floor:

http://princearthurherald.com/news/detail/?id=ad6e069e-2099-41f2-b79a-d446b2b25cec

The long gun registry: worthless and outdated
by Tom Kott
18 September 2012

Caption:
Having their name on the list did not mean much anyway. The RCMP and Statistics Canada were both forced to admit that statistics on gun crimes committed by licenced gun owners using registered guns have never actually been collected. Basically, there is no clear data or analysis as to whether registering a gun contributes to a lower rate of violent crime.

The Conservative government’s hotly debated decision to scrap the long-gun registry back in April 2012 infuriated Quebec. The province went so far as to sue the federal government for the right to acquire the registry’s information before it was officially destroyed; and they won. A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled that Quebec had a right to access the information and build their own provincial registry. If Quebec goes through with their plans, they’ll be relying on a two billion dollar outdated and worthless registry to do so.

To start, the long-gun registry never actually helped prevent any crime from occurring. To legally buy a long-gun in Canada, a category of firearms that only includes rifles and shotguns, one already has to go through the process of obtaining a license. That means a criminal records check, a background check – a psychological illness examination is included in this – and a reference check. It is a common mistake for people to think abolishing the gun registry takes away a layer of protection and security, but those who are licensed have already been thoroughly examined, and the long-gun registry did not further investigate the individual; it just added their name to yet another list.

Having their name on the list did not mean much anyway. The RCMP and Statistics Canada were both forced to admit that statistics on gun crimes committed by licenced gun owners using registered guns have never actually been collected. Basically, there is no clear data or analysis as to whether registering a gun contributes to a lower rate of violent crime. The closest estimate we have is from Gary Mauser of the Simon Fraser University who has calculated that only 3% of the murders in Canada since 1998 have been committed by licenced gun owners. This still tells us nothing about the guns themselves – if they were registered or not, or whether they were long-guns or any other type of firearm. This begs the question of why the Canadian people, and the province of Quebec, are so focused on saving the registry when it would be much more beneficial to focus on the remaining 97% of cases. The registry did not provide any statistical information to prove the need for its own existence.

The other problem with the long-gun registry is that it was never very reliable. When it was introduced in 1995, gun owners had to opt-in to the new system voluntarily. If you bought your gun at any point before the legislation was put into law, you had no obligation to sign-up. Realistically, one cannot expect many hunters and farmers jumped at the idea of registering their weapons with the government. Because of this the Canadian Shooting Sports Association estimates that seven million firearms are absent from the registry and that there could be many more. If the Canadian government wanted to track every long-gun the country, it found a very ineffective way to do so.

There is one final straw that effectively renders the long-gun registry absolutely useless. When the Harper government was elected to a minority government in 2006, it knew it would not be able to scrap the registry without losing the confidence of the House. However, it deliberately allowed licensed long-gun owners to trade rifles and shotguns without notifying the government of the transaction, something that was previously illegal. This effectively means that thousands of weapon transactions have occurred without the government’s knowledge, and therefore an equal number of firearms are registered to the wrong people and likely untraceable. The Conservative government’s decision to do this may be questionable, but like it or not, it long ago killed any hope of salvaging the registry.

Given the flawed and outdated information encompassed in the long-gun registry, it would be a grave mistake for Quebec to try to save it. The federal government spent about two million dollars a year maintaining the registry at a price tag of two billion dollars since the program began. Though the province would only keep the Quebec portion of the registry, it would still cost millions before they could ever have a functional registry set up, and even then there would be countless flaws in the system.

If the provincial government truly believes having a long-gun registry is in the interest of Quebecers, they would be better off starting right from scratch. It would be costly and it would take a long time to create a useful database, but they could learn from the mistakes of the federal government instead of simply piling more problems on top of them.

 

[Bass ackwards]

For whatever it's worth...
(reproduced under the Fair Dealing Provisions of the Copyright Act)

Gun registry records destroyed

BY DAVID AKIN , KRIS SIMS ,QMIAGENCY

OTTAWA - Federal Conservatives were cheering the destruction of hundreds of thousands of gun registry records Thursday night, the culmination of what has been a core campaign promise by the Tories for a decade.

The records were destroyed on Halloween, an extra treat for thousands of long-gun owners across the country who had long complained the registry made them feel like criminals.

The records, though, still exist for long-gun owners in Quebec, where there is a court order in place to protect them.

"Our Conservative Government is proud to say that as of (Oct. 31), all contents of the long-gun registry have been destroyed, except those related to Quebec," said Andrew McGrath, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. "We are making our streets and communities safer by targeting criminals who use firearms, not law-abiding Canadians.

"Make no mistake, the tax-and-spend NDP will not hesitate to bring back the long-gun registry. Now that these data have been deleted, they can never be recovered - even by Thomas Mulcair."

Tony Bernardo, spokesman for the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, said he was "delighted that the data is gone.

"It's always a danger that if the data is still there something or someone could use it, either as a state to seize it, or as a criminal to burglarize a home that has firearms," Bernardo said.

He said it's very important for everyone to understand the importance of the right of law-abiding citizens to own a gun, even if they don't have one themselves.

"For the state to force the registration of an essential piece of private property like a shotgun or a rifle, is an assault on the right to own private property in this country," Bernardo told QMI Agency. "The only time a state has ever registered firearms is to tax them or to take them. "Firearms represent symbols of freedom to many people - slaves have never been allowed to own guns."

The now defeated Quebec government of Jean Charest wanted to keep the long-gun registry alive -- it was very popular in the province -- and took the federal government to court to save the data.

The Quebec Superior Court recently upheld that province's injunction, saying the destruction of the data violated the Constitution and the spirit of federalism.

The registry was started by the federal Liberal government in 1995. The computer and paper-based system ran billions of dollars over budget and it once even accepted the registration of a soldering gun.

The registry was largely loathed in rural and Western Canada.

The Reform Party, Canadian Alliance and the current Conservative party made it a central platform plank to get rid of it and passed a law to destroy it this past spring.

Article link:
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/11/01/gun-registry-records-destroyed

 

[Edward Campbell]

Young M. Trudeau may have gotten himself into a bit of a pickle. Not all that long ago he voted against the CPC's proposals, now successful, to abolish the long gun registry. But to, on CBC Radio he said that the registry was a waste. In a campaign stop in rural Prescott-Russel, in Eastern Ontario, he said the same thing and also said "I'm not going to resuscitate that."

Two problems:

1. The minor one is that it's another inconsistency; and

2. The major one is that the route back to power for the Liberals is through Quebec and in that province the long gun registry remains wildly popular.

He will, at the very least, have to say, en français that Quebec is entitled to have its own long gun registry and it will, no doubt, run it better than Ottawa did. Both the Conservatives and the NDP will parse every word he says and jump on every contradiction.

 

[Loachman]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/12/01/pol-the-house-justin-trudeau-long-gun-registry.html

Trudeau calls long-gun registry 'a failure'

by Susana Mas, CBC News

Posted: Dec 1, 2012 3:15 PM ET

Last Updated: Dec 1, 2012 6:06 PM ET

Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau called the long-gun registry "a failure," during a campaign stop in the Conservative riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell on Friday.

"The long-gun registry as it was, was a failure and I'm not going to resuscitate that," said Trudeau while visiting the DART Aerospace plant in Hawkesbury.

"We will continue to look at ways of keeping our cities safe and making sure that we do address the concerns around domestic violence that happen right across the country, in rural as well as urban areas in which, unfortunately, guns do play a role."

"But there are better ways of keeping us safe than that registry which is, has been removed," said Trudeau.

The Liberal leadership hopeful made the comments after he was asked for his view on the now-defunct long-gun registry.

"I grew up with long-guns, rifles and shotguns," explained the son of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

"Yes, the RCMP guarding me had handguns and I got to play with them every now and then," said Trudeau, quickly adding that the RCMP was "very responsible" around him and his siblings.

Trudeau went on to say, "I was raised with an appreciation and an understanding of how important in rural areas and right across the country gun ownership is as a part of the culture of Canada. I do not feel that there's any huge contradiction between keeping our cities safe from gun violence and gangs, and allowing this important facet of Canadian identity which is having a gun."

Trudeau, who worked as a high school teacher before jumping into politics, said he once took a school group hiking across Greenland armed with a gun.

"It was one of the only times that I ever taught with a loaded 30-06 slung over my shoulder. You don't usually think of teaching with a heavy duty rifle on your shoulder, but when you're in polar bear country, you have to be aware of that."

Trudeau blamed not only the Conservatives but also previous governments for polarizing the gun debate.

"We have a government, or successive governments, that have managed to polarize the conversations around gun ownership to create games in electoral ways — when you don't have to have a conflict," the MP from Quebec said.

"There is no concept, no idea that gun ownership is ever going to be under attack for law-abiding hunters and farmers across this country. But we need to keep the cities safe. And I don't see that that's an unsolvable solution," said Trudeau.

Quebec in long-gun registry battle

The federal long-gun registry was first created by the Liberal Party in 1995, in the wake of the 1989 massacre at École Polytechnique, where a gunman shot and killed 14 women, mostly engineering students.

The "$2 billion boondoggle" registry was loathed by much of rural Canada and opposed by the Conservatives, who after several attempts, finally abolished it in April after passing Bill C-19, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and The Firearms Act, in a final vote of 159-130. Trudeau voted against the abolition of the federal long-gun registry.

The Quebec government went to court to preserve its share of long-gun data and in September, a Quebec Superior Court judge sided with the province.

While the federal government has destroyed millions of records of registered long guns, it is currently appealing the Quebec court ruling blocking it from destroying the data from Quebec's portion of the federal long-gun registry.

No stranger to public scrutiny, Trudeau said his biggest challenge is getting Canadians to know what he does and doesn't stand for.

Yes, contradicting oneself will certainly add to that challenge.

The best comment that I saw was from "MaxPointy" - "Translation: We've crunched the numbers and determined that we can't win a majority without support from rural regions, so we've made the courageous decision to criticize an unpopular program that's already been scrapped."

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Guns are an addiction, just ordered a FDE Gen 4 G19 from Dlask and Canadaammo confirmed that all pre-orders for Type 97 (including mine) stand. Anyone want buy a non-railed Sig 220? got pay for my hobby.....

 

[NavyShooter]

I just got 14 guns from an estate that I'm selling for them....all proceeds to the surviving 12 year old daughter's trust fund. 

E-mail me if you want a list....

 

[a_majoor]

Despite the mountain of evidence, do not expect gun control "advocates" to be swayed by arguments like these. It isn't about gun control. It is all about control, period:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/11/gary-mauser-why-the-long-gun-registry-doesnt-work-and-never-did/

Gary Mauser: Why the long-gun registry doesn’t work — and never did

Gary Mauser, Special to National Post | Dec 11, 2012 12:01 AM ET
More from Special to National Post

In March, Stephen Harper’s government reversed decades of increasing restrictions on civilian firearms, scrapping the controversial long-gun registry on grounds that it was wasteful and ineffective. Gun laws, the prime minister correctly said, should focus on criminals rather than law-abiding citizens such as farmers and hunters.

Some claim that this Conservative policy flies in the face of a mountain of evidence, and even represents an assault against reason. Canadian voters seem divided on this issue, as well as some basic related questions: Are firearms in the hands of ordinary citizens a serious threat to public safety? Is registration an effective approach to controlling misuse? How useful was the long-gun registry to police? This article will answer some of those questions.

Gun laws generally tend to be passed during periods of fear or instability, and only occasionally reversed afterwards. In 1913, for instance, a fear of immigrants prompted Ottawa’s first serious handgun legislation, requiring civilians to obtain a police-issued permit to acquire or carry handguns. Non-British immigrants found it difficult to get a permit.

Fearing labour unrest as well as American rum-runners, Ottawa mandated handgun registration in 1934. In 1941, concerned about possible Japanese sabotage, the government prohibited all “Orientals” (including Chinese) from owning firearms. (After the war, these restrictions were rescinded.) Terrorism in Quebec swayed opinion in the 1960s and ’70s, spurring Ottawa to limit handgun permits for “protection” to a handful of people, such as retired police and prospectors. In 1977, a Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) was required to obtain ordinary rifles and shotguns. (The police decided to refuse an FAC to anyone who indicated a desire for self-

protection. This is shocking given that in a typical year, tens of thousands of Canadians use firearms to protect themselves or their families, mostly from wildlife.)

The 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal prompted the Mulroney government to introduce Bill C-17 in 1991, prohibiting a large number of military-style rifles and shotguns. FAC applicants were now required to provide a photograph and references, and to submit to police screening. (Typically, vetting involves telephone checks with neighbours and spouses or ex-spouses.)

In 1993, the Liberals brought in additional changes to gun laws, passing Bill C-68 in 1995 (the Firearms Act). Over half of all registered handguns in Canada were prohibited. No evidence was provided that these handguns had been misused.

The heart of the Firearms Act to this day is licensing: Owning a firearm, an ordinary rifle or shotgun became a criminal offence for those who do not hold a valid licence. In addition, the 1995 law broadened police powers of search and seizure, and expanded the types of officials who could make use of such powers, and weakened constitutionally-protected rights against self-incrimination. To coincide with the “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women,” the Firearms Act became law on Dec. 5, 1995. However, it took until 1998 to issue licences and require buyers to register long guns. In 2001, all gun owners were required to have a licence and, by 2003, to register all of their rifles and shotguns.

Not everyone complied. An estimated 65% of firearms owners registered at least one rifle or shotgun, and no more than half of all long guns ended up in the registry. Opposition was intense and has never abated. Grassroots anger helped to fuel the rise of the Reform Party, and contributed to the elimination of the Liberals as a political force in the West. Despite their mutual antagonism, three opposition parties (Reform, Progressive Conservative and New Democrat) united against the legislation. Only the Bloc Québécois voted with the Liberals.

In 2002, the auditor-general revealed that the Firearms Centre had grown out of control. Despite political promises that the program would not cost over $2-million, costs were expected to exceed $1-billion by 2005. By 2012, this had ballooned to $2.7-billion. The auditor-general uncovered irregularities including mismanagement and corruption. Her findings stimulated a parliamentary revolt. In 2003, Parliament imposed an annual spending cap. The auditors’ reports led to RCMP investigations of Liberal insiders and contributed to the fall of the Liberal government in 2006.

To this day, it has been claimed that the registry is important in protecting women. But in fact, there is no convincing evidence that registering firearms has been effective in reducing either homicide rates overall, or spousal murders in particular. Even though homicide rates have been gradually falling since the 1970s, a wide variety of researchers have been unable to find solid evidence linking gun laws to this decline. Changing demographics, not firearms laws, better explain the decline in homicides involving long guns over the past 20 years. It is difficult to argue that Canadian gun laws are effective when homicide rates have dropped faster in the United States than in Canada since 1991.

Another argument is that strict laws are required to monitor potentially dangerous gun owners. However, in my Senate testimony, I presented Statistics Canada data to show that anyone who has legally obtained a gun is less likely to be murderous than other Canadians. This should not surprise anyone: Firearms owners have been screened for criminal acts since 1979; and since 1992, they have been stripped of their firearms in cases where they commit a violent crime. (Ironically, Canada does not currently have in place a coherent system that tracks violent criminals on probation or parole — instead choosing to track law-abiding, licensed duck hunters, farmers and recreational sport shooters.)

A third claim is that long guns are the weapon of choice in domestic homicides, and that registration can help to identify the perpetrator. (This is related to the aforementioned claim that guns promote violence against women.) In fact, the long-gun registry and licensing are rarely needed by police to solve spousal homicides for three reasons: (1) in almost all cases, spousal murderers are immediately identified; (2) firearms are not often used to kill female spouses; and (3) the firearms used by abusive spouses to kill their wives are almost all possessed illegally. Statistics Canada data show that just 4% of long guns involved in homicides were registered.

In a typical year, there are almost 600 homicides and 60 female spousal murders in Canada. On average, long guns are involved in the deaths of just 11 female spouses. It is knives, not long guns, that are the weapons used most often to kill women. Statistics Canada found that most spouses (65%) accused of homicide had a history of violence involving the victim. None of these spouses could legally own a firearm.

Every home has a variety of objects, such as hammers or kitchen knives, that can be used for assault or murder. Creating expensive bureaucracies to register one or more of these items does nothing to protect vulnerable women.

A fourth assertion is that the long-gun registry is an important tool for the police because they use it 14,000 to 17,000 times daily. Besides mistaking frequency of use with usefulness, this claim is disingenuous because it confuses the long-gun registry with the Canadian Firearms Registry Online (CFRO). Almost 98% of the queries to the CFRO concern licensing, not the long-gun registry. The firearms registry contains only gun-specific data, such as the make or model.

The statistics show that police recover registered long guns in just 1% of homicides. During the eight years from 2003 to 2010, there were 4,811 homicides; 1,485 of those involved firearms; only 45 featured long guns registered to the accused. In none of these few cases have the police been able to say that the long-gun registry provided the identity of the murderer.

A fifth contention is that the registry tells the police who has firearms. This is false. Neither licensing nor the long-gun registry contains information about unregistered firearms. The most dangerous criminals have not registered their firearms. Trusting the registry can get police officers killed. When police approach a dangerous person or situation, they must assume there could be an illegal weapon. For this reason, experienced police officers have testified that they do not find the registry helpful.

A sixth claim is that the data in the long-gun registry are too valuable to be destroyed. Unfortunately, the many errors and omissions in the registry vitiate its utility. The RCMP testified to the auditor-general that they could not rely on it in court. Recent information shows that many errors remain despite the best efforts of the Canadian Firearms Program. Immense problems similarly have been reported concerning the accuracy of the South African firearms registry and the now-abandoned New Zealand long-gun registry.

The RCMP has reported error rates between 43% and 90% in firearms applications and registry information. An Access to Information request discovered that 4,438 stolen firearms had been successfully reregistered without alerting authorities. Apparently, the thieves had resold the firearms to new owners who (unsuspectingly) had subsequently registered them. This is a classic database problem: garbage in, gospel out. The irregularities stem from multiple causes inherent in any registration system.

The evidence shows that the long-gun registry has not been effective in reducing criminal violence. Nor is the Canadian experience unique. No international study of firearm laws by criminologists or economists has found support for the claim that restricting access to firearms by civilians reduces criminal violence. And so ending the long gun registry is consistent with the basic principles of good fiscal management. Arguably any government program that fails to achieve its objectives should be shut down.

In abolishing the long-gun registry, the Harper government was acting in accordance with the available evidence. It is the government’s opponents, whose ideological belief in the unproven efficacy of gun control blinds them to fact, who are out of step with the available evidence.

National Post

Gary A. Mauser is a professor emeritus at the Beedie School of Business and the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby,, B.C. A longer version of this article appears in thecurrent issue of The Dorchester Review magazine.

 

[Loachman]

Interesting reading: http://www.pseudology.org/Crim/GunFacts5_1.pdf

 

[Colin Parkinson]

thanks Loachman, a quick review of it jives with othr souces I have read.

 

[NavyShooter]

http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/6.1/gun_facts_6_1_screen.pdf

2012 version....

 

[GAP]

and then there was this

 

[Kat Stevens]

and then there was this

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/homeinvasion.asp

 

[Stoker]

and then there was this

Love it  even though it wasn't true, the sediment is there though :nod:

 

[GAP]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/homeinvasion.asp

That's ok....I still enjoyed it.... ;D

 

[Fishbone Jones]

and then there was this

While that particular incident has been proven(?) untrue, there are plenty of true, documented cases that follow fairly similar scenarios.

 

[Kat Stevens]

That's ok....I still enjoyed it.... ;D

Me too, if it's not true, it should be.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The federal government's mandatory-minimum sentence of three years imprisonment for the possession of a loaded and prohibited firearm is unconstitutional, says a provincial court judge in Surrey, B.C.

The ruling was handed down by Judge James Bahen Thursday and focuses on the sentencing of Glenn Harley Tetsuji Sheck.

The apprentice electrician whom the judge says has no criminal record was 29 years old when he was arrested by police and found with a loaded Glock 9-millimetre semi-automatic handgun outside a Surrey restaurant.

Bahen said the federal law breaches Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, one of the sections that establish the fundamental legal rights of Canadians.

"This breach is caused by the arbitrary gap between the maximum sentence of one year in summary proceedings and the minimum three years sentence when proceeding by indictment," said Bahen in his written ruling.

Summary offences are generally less serious, while indictable offences are considered more serious and include break and enter, theft over $5,000, aggravated sexual assault as well as murder.

Bahen also ruled the general application of the mandatory-minimum sentence in "reasonable hypothetical circumstances" could potentially violate Section 12 of the charter by imposing cruel and unusual punishment.

That means, according to the charter, that "governments cannot treat individuals or punish them in an excessively harsh manner."

However, the judge decided not to rule the law to be of no force and effect in Sheck's sentencing, and has given the Crown and opportunity to make further presentations to the court on the matter ....

The Canadian Press, 4 Jan 13

 

[GAP]

Just to follow up....

Firebombers left Ontario homeowner no choice but to shoot
Court drops final charge against man who fired shots to protect his home
By Dave Johnson, QMI Agency
Article Link

WELLAND, Ont. — An Ontario court has ruled Ian Thomson did nothing wrong when he armed himself against thugs who were firebombing his home.

The landmark decision took a judge 45 minutes to read as he acquitted the firearms instructor of all remaining charges.

In August 2010, Thomson fired his registered pistol over the heads of attackers before calling police. The cops, however, charged Thomson for improper storage of a firearm because he set the gun down on a table as he waited for the authorities to arrive.

“I’m somewhat relieved, but it still hasn’t sunk in,” the Port Colbourne, Ont., man said late Thursday afternoon.
end

In the comments section of the article there is mention of a DAS Canada Legal Protection Insurance Policy.

For you legal gun owners out there, it might be a wise move in view of the paranoia local police services have about use and storage of guns...
http://www.firearmlegaldefence.com/

interesting times........

the insurance policy info
http://www.firearmlegaldefence.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/FirearmPolicy.pdf

 

[57Chevy]

This article from The Loop by Sympatico is shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

Where are guns in Canada, and what are the most likely places for gun-related crime?

Guns in Canada: Ownership and crime across the country
by Jordan Hale and Greg J. Smith, January 1, 2013
http://www.theloop.ca/news/all/map-of-the-week/article/-/a/1025253/Guns-in-Canada-Ownership-and-crime-across-the-country