Germany is trying to get out front of other EU countries by creating a national firearms registry by1 January, 2013. The Canadian Shooting Sports Association and the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action (CSSA/CILA) combined to “offer some friendly advice as a courtesy to the German people” in this open letter, which could apply equally to Australia:
CSSA/CILA notes with alarm and dread that Germany is planning to create a firearms registry.
In the wake of the obvious failure of these databases elsewhere in the world, we can only conclude that German government officials may have imbibed too liberally at Oktoberfest! Creating a new registry is a colossally bad idea. Canada has proved that laying a piece of paper beside legal guns is not a public safety measure. It can only create financial havoc that the EU can ill afford. After much sober second thought, the Conservative party in Canada recently scrapped the firearms registry conceived by the Liberal party 20 years ago. The database was designed as a public relations ruse to get the Liberals re-elected, and they successfully duped millions of Canadians into believing it would reduce gun crimes. Of course, it did nothing of the kind. That’s what your government is doing to you now.
A gun registry isn’t capable of reducing crime. Canadians mourned a horrible tragedy on December 6, 1989 when a crazed assailant killed 14 women with a hunting rifle at a college in Quebec. Then he shot himself. The Canadian media still writes about it every year on December 6, which has made the attacker very famous. Canadians felt helpless and demanded that the government do something to prevent it from ever happening again. The Liberal government decided to try to go after all sporting long-guns, instead of targeting criminals. The Liberals blamed the guns! They told gun owners to contact them with a list of their guns or they could go to jail. Needless to say, the criminals didn’t comply. The only people who registered their firearms were the law-abiding sport shooters, farmers, hunters, trappers and collectors, but they were never part of the problem.
Then another tragic college shooting took place in Quebec. Fifteen years after the gun registry had been introduced, another crazed gunman injured 19 people and killed two more. Some people believe he did it so the media would make him famous, too. And it worked! Canadians were shocked because the government promised that the registry would prevent mass shootings. But, slowly the people realized that criminals don’t register guns and even registered guns can be abused. That’s when most Canadians admitted that a gun registry is useless. There are still a few people who seem to believe it somehow keeps them safe, including most of the members of Parliament in our two federal opposition parties. They say they’ll start a new registry if they’re elected, but after 20 years they still can’t provide any evidence that it enhances safety. Most Canadians now realize that opposition MPs are just trying to scare us into voting for them.
The Liberal government said 20 years ago that it would only cost $2 million to create a national computer database to match up all the long-guns in Canada to an individual and their address. They were way off. After 20 years, it has cost more than $2 billion, which is a hundred times more than the original estimate. Our national police force has even admitted that computer hackers have found out where the registered gun are located. After our registry was scrapped, the CSSA/CILA invented the Great Canadian Gun Registry Shuffle, so everyone could legally swap guns and prove the data is antiquated.
Canadians are quite similar to Germans in some ways, especially when it comes to doing what their political masters tell them. We are both law abiding peoples and usually obey our laws – even bad ones. But a gun registry is such an useless public safety measure that many people either ignored the law or didn’t know it applied to them. That why more than half the rifles and shotguns in Canada have never been registered.
If you allow your politicians to create a registry, you will deserve the hideous expense to taxpayers and unfairness to responsible gun owners. Canada tried it. New Zealand tried it. It doesn’t work, so we scrapped it. If it is ever introduced here again, it is doubtful that most firearm owners would comply. Your police officers will pretend they need a registry to prevent and solve crimes, but don’t buy it. The Liberal government admitted that they only want police and military personnel to have guns. Perhaps that’s why the German leadership wants to know where your guns are located. Just in case they decide to confiscate them some day.
Hope you don’t mind us sharing our gun registry experience with you. In the meantime, if you ever find evidence that a registry can work as a public safety component, please let us know. No one here has found a shred of evidence after 20 years.
Regards and hoping you demand better from your legislators,
The folks at CSSA/CILA
0 Comments