Our View: Gun registry fiscal waste toend
By Barry Gerding – Kelowna Capital News
Published: October 27, 2011 4:00 AM
The looming end of the federal long gunregistry is a good omen for taxpayers.
It shows that the federal government isactually willing to get rid of programs that serve no purpose, andwaste tax dollars unnecessarily. While the Conservatives have longhad this program in their sights, let’s hope there are more tofollow.
The gun registry was, from the verybeginning, a highly political move. The Liberals, under then justiceminister Allan Rock, wanted to show city voters that they would betough on gun owners. It was all about cementing urban voting blocs,and for the most part, it worked.
The Liberals’ crumbling power baseremains at its strongest in big city downtowns, particularlyMontreal, Toronto and Vancouver. However, one reason that Liberalsupport has dramatically fallen off in other areas is the gunregistry, which has been a waste of almost $2 billion, and has donealmost nothing to stop crime.
Police access the database frequently,but all it does it alert them to the possibility that there may beguns in a specific home.
It has been used to arrest legitimategun owners whose only offence has been improper storage. Yet theregistry does nothing to stop gun violence—most of which iscommitted with unregistered handguns smuggled into Canada from theU.S.
There is definitely a place for aregistry for handguns, as has been in place in Canada since the1930s. But there is no place for a registry of rifles and shotgunsthat are used for sport.
They are almost never used in crimes. What is helpful is storage requirements, including trigger locks,storage of ammunition away from the firearm, and locked cabinets. Allof these keep guns from being used for the wrong purposes.
But the registry is simply an insult tolaw-abiding citizens.
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