How to cure a federal budget surplus: create a gun registry - the ultimate boondoggle

[Bull]

Gun registry not ready until 2007
12 years after bill passed
Tim Naumetz, with files from Robert Fife
CanWest News Service
Thursday, December 02, 2004

OTTAWA - The federal gun registry won't be fully operational until 2007, 12 years after it was approved by Parliament and at a price tag the Conservatives say will now reach more than $1.4-billion.

The registry was announced in 1995 and was to cost no more than $85-million.

The Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness disclosed the new readiness date this week in response to a written question Saskatchewan Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz tabled in the House of Commons.

"It is anticipated that all components of the firearms program now planned or under development will be fully implemented by December 31, 2007," the department said.

The new timetable means the firearms program will have cost a minimum of $1.4-billion by then, said Mr. Breitkreuz, who represents Yorkton-Melville.

"That is 12 years after the legislation was passed," Mr. Breitkreuz said in an interview. "They have always made commitments to us about timelines, and it's never happened. I'm not a bit sure they are even going to keep their 2007 commitment."

Shortly before the election in June, the federal government said it would cap spending on the registry portion of the program at $25-million a year beginning next year.

He said it will likely be impossible to keep that commitment. He noted the government originally promised the firearms program would cost no more than $85-million.

"The cost overruns have been absolutely horrific," he said. "If we would have known back in 1995 when we were debating this that it was going to go over even that, it would never have been approved."

The government also tabled figures showing, contrary to earlier claims, the licensing portion of the firearms program takes up only about one-third of the scheme's annual cost.

The licensing portion cost $40.2-million in 2002-03 and $59.6-million in 2003-04. From 1995 to 2002, the licensing portion cost a total of $396-million, the government said.

The Canada Firearms Centre has always insisted the majority of the firearm program costs went toward the licensing provisions, not the registry portion that has caused most of the resentment from gun owners.

In July, it was revealed the registry is being cited by an American publication as a case study in incompetence and financial mismanagement.

Baseline, a U.S. magazine which conducts case studies on information technology, published an analysis of the gun registry titled Canada Firearms: Armed Robbery.

''What was supposed to be a relatively modest information technology project ballooned into a massive undertaking. At last count, the program had amassed more than $1-billion in costs, and the system has become so cumbersome that an independent review board recommended that it be scrapped,'' Baseline wrote.

Costs soared out of control as a result of bureaucratic errors, poor planning, unforeseen expenses and an increasingly complex computer system, Baseline noted.

 

[timec]

Bull - do you have concerns about the concept of a gun registry or the described cost of this one? Concept or cost... or both?

 

[Marvin]

A great legacy left by Allan Rock! Friggin idiot!

Imagine how that much money could have been spent elsewhere to the greater benefit of all Canadians.

If I recall, there was really nothing wrong with the regulation of firearms in the early 1990's, before they instituted the gun registry. If anything, it caused law abiding gun owners to go underground with their firearms to avoid registering and inherting ridiculous cost to register them.

 

[timec]

Concept or cost?

 

[Marvin]

Both.

The regulation of firearms was just fine in the early 90's and in order to have every legal gun registered triggered this massive, unnecessary cost overun.

You have to ask yourself, did the gun registery prevent any less illegal use of firearms used in the commission of crimes??

 

[Bull]

A billion dollar bag of perfect uselessness

Bull - do you have concerns about the concept of a gun registry or the described cost of this one? Concept or cost... or both?

Both. If the registry actually saved lives, I'd probably be in favour (but not at the Liberal pricetag), but I don't think there is any evidence anywhere to indicate it has been a life saver. I'm kind of with Rex Murphy on this one (he wrote the rant below back when the price was only a bargain basement $1 billion....)

__________________________________

The gun registry: A billion dollar bag of perfect uselessness

Jan. 7, 2004

For the second time in less than a year, parts of Toronto resemble a bad gangster movie.

Almost every weekend for the last while, one or more people are shot. Some are injured, others killed at clubs, at dances, on the street. There's usually a crowd present when the fireworks start, but there's hardly ever a witness with the guts to come forward afterwards. Vancouver is not as ripe with gun killings or injuries as Toronto, but there was one killing in Vancouver recently even more disgusting than some of the ones here. The young woman killed by a handgun was trying to help some poor character who was being set upon and kicked by a bunch of thugs. She got shot and killed in the downtown district of Gastown. It seems particularly miserable that the only person with spirit and conscience to interfere with a beating, a genuine good Samaritan, gets shot and killed, killed essentially for being a decent human being.

If this level of murderous thuggery were present in any other country but Canada, I suppose the public attitude would have to be one of despair and helplessness, but Canada, our dear Canada has had for a number of years now one of the most thorough and certainly one of the most expensive gun registry programs since the very invention of gun powder. And if we are to oblige the logic that went into setting up a system of registering firearms with the cost only slightly less than the missile defence program, it has to be that when a gun goes off criminally in this country, all the police have to do is tap the nearest computer keyboard, pick up the handcuffs on their way out, and nab the felon.

I know it will stagger everyone to hear this, but it doesn't quite work like that. Whether it's a rash of gun killings or just a single gun murder, our platinum priced gun registry with its billion-dollar cost overrun is not just ordinarily useless in cases of this kind, it is perfectly useless. It is useless without qualification. It does nothing. This may surprise a few anti-gun philosophers, but the knowledge that a farmer has a 12-gauge in Saskatchewan or a hunter has a .30-30 in Newfoundland is infinitely irrelevant. It is sublimely without purpose or point for a gang shooting in downtown Toronto or the butchery of a good Samaritan in the Gastown of Vancouver. You know why, of course. The very people who shoot other people as a hobby, a pastime, or a career are, wait for it, the very people who don't give a flying fig about registering their wretched handguns in the first place. People who shoot people do not join line-ups to tell police where they stole, smuggled, or bought their guns in the first place.

So now Paul Martin, staring down a billion dollars worth of ludicrously expensive wishful thinking, is about to look into the gun registry. If he doesn't scrap it all together, admit it was nothing more than wasteful piety from its very conception, and close it down, we will know he's only playing with the issue. It is a waste, he knows it's a waste, and a politically correct waste to boot. It's a billion dollar bag of perfect uselessness. Let's see him act on that knowledge.

For "The National," I'm Rex Murphy.
_______________________________

 

[timec]

LOL - youse guys & the standard pat "prove a negative" comeback... Bull, c'mon - let's see some of that Garry Breitkreuz stuff.

 

[Penhold]

I'm reluctant to wade in here but will do so anyways.

I question the usefulness of the present firearms registry system if its primary purpose is to remove weapons from criminals or to help catch criminals. To be really useful for that purpose, criminals would have to obey the law. More importantly, the firearms registry should then require and keep a ballistics test on each firearm. Firearms are rarely left at the scene of a crime so what good is simply having the firearms registered? If there is a ballistics test, there is a better chance of tracing the source of the firearm that was used. But again, criminals obtain smuggled weapons and don't register them.

Police officers responding to a domestic emergency where spousal abuse is involved should certainly have some means of quickly knowing whether a firearm is in the house. Given the prevalence of firearms and the large number of unregistered firearms, I expect any prudent police officer would probably approach every domestic disturbance on the basis that there may be a firearm or other weapon in the house anyways. The registry only tells him/her the number and type of registered weapons, but there is always the risk of non-registered weapons.

A surprisingly large number of deaths occur each year from accidental discharge of firearms by children. The number in the U.S. for injury/death due to accidental discharge of firearms by children is extremely high. I would much rather have seen the government pass a law that required the following:

1. Anyone buying or possessing a firearm has to be licensed - which they can only get after passing an appropriate firearms safety course.

2. All firearms have to be stored in metal, locked cabinets, and the keys have to be kept in a separate place - such as carried personally at all times or stored in a safety deposit box. Ammunition must be stored separately, and under separate lock and key.

3. Firing pins should be/have to be removable, and stored under separate lock and key from the firearm.

4. Complete prohibition against any military type firearms or other heavy firepower - except perhaps by collectors who could demonstrate they were legitimate collectors and had appropriate safe and secure storage facilities in place and would abide by the above requirements.

When I was on a sharp-shooting team, steps 2 and 3 above were standard practice that had to be followed by everyone. They rendered the weapons unserviceable since the firing pins were stored off-premises from where the weapons were stored.

The first three steps would also reduce the use of firearms in domestic disputes where they are often used at the spur of the moment in the "heat of passion". It wouldn't eliminate the use entirely, but would certainly slow down the access to the firearm and perhaps even give the other spouse an opportunity to escape.

Penalties for non-compliance should be extremely harsh with no exceptions.

I no longer have any firearms, but if anyone reading PERB has firearms then I would encourage them to follow steps 2 and 3 to the extent they can (if they are not already doing so).

Once the firearms registry is finally complete they can start a 'grow op' registry so that all the criminals who registered their weapons will also be required to register their grow op locations.

Those that disagree may feel free to flame away.

 

[Bull]

LOL - youse guys & the standard pat "prove a negative" comeback... Bull, c'mon - let's see some of that Garry Breitkreuz stuff.

Timec:

Presumably you support this monster. What are your arguments for it?

 

[Kev]

RED TEXT BY KEV

1. Anyone buying or possessing a firearm has to be licensed - which they can only get after passing an appropriate firearms safety course.This is already law, and has been for sometime. Althought the safety course we do have in Canada is a joke.

2. All firearms have to be stored in metal, locked cabinets, and the keys have to be kept in a separate place - such as carried personally at all times or stored in a safety deposit box. Ammunition must be stored separately, and under separate lock and key.
Ditto, whats written here is already law in Canada. Having weapons in one location and ammunition in another is a good idea.

3. Firing pins should be/have to be removable, and stored under separate lock and key from the firearm.
This is unneccassary. All you need is a trigger lock. If the trigger is secured with a lock the trigger can not be engaged.


4. Complete prohibition against any military type firearms or other heavy firepower - except perhaps by collectors who could demonstrate they were legitimate collectors and had appropriate safe and secure storage facilities in place and would abide by the above requirements.

The licence you need for possession of firearms listed above, is a Prohibited Licence. The "only" way you can hold a prohibited licence if someone on their death wills you a prohibited weapon. This is the only way. You can not apply for this licence, and you can only take possession of the weapon after the person dies. Once you have this licence you are legally entitled to buy/sell other prohibited weapons. Lucky bastards

One question i have is who decides what is deemed a military type weapon. For example i can take a .222 caliber dear rifle, add a pistol grip, a flash suppressor, barrel shroud, and it will look like a military weapon. Should a weapon be banned because of its looks. I think not. Thats what Bill Clinton did with (CGB). This useless piece of legislation said if a gun looks dangerous it must be dangerous therefore it should be banned. Fortunately the CGB bill fell by the way side last September. Thank god. What makes a gun dangerous is the "GUNS ACTION," (machine gun, semi automatic, revolver, etc) not what it looks like. --- Kev

 

[Penhold]

Kev:

Great points. Love the red, by the way. I thought it would look better and be more appropriate to the discussion at hand if the red was darker, more like the colour of blood

The existing safety course is, indeed, required by law but the course as you noted is a joke. What they need and should require by law is a very comprehensive safety course. It should include not only safety but also training to achieve a certain minimum level of marksmanship. You might be very safe in handling the firearm, but you still have to be able to at least hit the broad side of a barn door. If you miss, you can easily hit someone that is a long ways away.

The present legal requirements for metal gun cases is not adequate - you just steal the entire case as many are left free-standing. They should be much more robust and permanently fastened to something.

Trigger locks are good, but I've heard that they can be defeated if a thief wants to try hard enough. Removing the firing pin, on the other hand, essentially renders the gun useless if its a gun of reasonable quality since they are not interchangeable between different guns. This is the case for many guns manufactured in North America and Europe but of course may not be the case for guns originating in third world countries that are not machined to tight tolerances (I understand one of the benefits of the Kalashnikov rifles is that the parts are more interchangeable as the looser tolerances makes them less likely to jam when in use in combat situations).

What is missing in the law is a means to enforce the existing laws and regulations. I still encounter people who do not store their guns properly and would be happy to see the licensing fee increased to include the price of having someone come and verify that they have the proper storage facilities in their premises and that the firearms are actually stored properly and without a round in the chamber as is sometimes the case!

Firearms shouldn't really be defined by their appearance, but by their size and capability. The US had a temporary prohibition against fully automatic weapons that had magazines in excess of a certain limit - which prohibition just expired before the US election and was not made an issue by either candidate because they did not want to offend the NRA and lose their votes. Having used a lot of military and civilian firearms in the past, I have no problem with a restriction on the size of the magazine and a prohibition against fully automatic weapons (does anyone need a fully automatic with a 30 shot clip to go hunting?).

I am a member of a few motorcycle bulletin boards in the U.S. - none of which are for Harley-Davidsons by the way. Scared the hell out of me to learn how many motorcyclists on those bulletin boards said they carried handguns with them on their motorcycles. When firearms are discussed on those boards, it's rarely about whether to carry handguns but more about the relative merits, power and clip sizes of the different handguns that they do carry. Makes me think twice about cutting off a motorcyclist when south of the border! Hate to think what's in the cars and bigger vehicles!

 

[dbrw42]

.None of this is terribly difficult, we do the first two for cars and motorcycles all the time. The third requires more work, but the technology now exists to ballistically fingerprint a gun. Last year locally there was a case of someone driving around acerages and shooting horses ( turned out to be with a legally aquired gun BTW ) The police had the bullets and shell casings, but had no database that would tell them "that came from this gun, sold to this man ... look here."

This idea was brought up during the Washington Sniper shootings, and it still won't work. Ballistics works on the principle that the rifling in the barrel makes a distinctive pattern on the slug as it travels the barrel. However, fire enough rounds through the barrel, and over time the rifling will change. So say I buy a .44 Magnum today, they take the ballistic fingerprint, I fire a few thousand rounds downrange, then shoot somebody. The rifling has changed and no match. This is without the problems of reboring the barrel, or the fact that many firearms can have the barrels with ease.

 

[Fudd]

So what's wrong with registering guns? And why don't they get a sample bullet from every gun so when it used in a crime it can be traced back to the criminal?

 

[Fudd]

If the police had registered the guns and gotten a sample bullet. The bullet left in the girl that got killed could be used to trace back to the gun and then to the killer. Its simple why don't they do it?

Also as Grend pointed out getting a sample case from the guns could also be used to trace the killer.

 

[Fudd]

"Police officers responding to a domestic emergency where spousal abuse is involved should certainly have some means of quickly knowing whether a firearm is in the house."

Maybe have some sort of ID sticker on the door of gun owners so when they respond to an emergency they know right away when there is potential danger.

 

[BC Hobbyist]

If the police had registered the guns and gotten a sample bullet. The bullet left in the girl that got killed could be used to trace back to the gun and then to the killer. Its simple why don't they do it?

Fudd

You're assuming the gun used was legally purchased and registered to the killer. Why would you assume such a thing? The majority of the guns used by criminals are stolen or have been smuggled in from the States.

BTW -Handguns in Canada have been restricted and have required registration since the 1930's. It is the new requirement to register non-restricted (long guns) that has gun owners up in arms.

 

[BC Hobbyist]

Maybe have some sort of ID sticker on the door of gun owners so when they respond to an emergency they know right away when there is potential danger.

Sure Fudd, let's make it real easy for the crimminals to know where the guns are so we get even more stolen guns out on the street.

 

[P.B.]

LOL - youse guys & the standard pat "prove a negative" comeback... Bull, c`mon - let`s see some of that Garry Breitkreuz stuff.

Timec,

What are the pros other than the usual ex-PM Cretin quote "you have to register cars why not guns" or the typical CGC emotional rhetoric? I have previously called for discussion on this and have received NO replies. There doesn`t seem to be a logical reason to support the registry. Does anyone have one?

https://perb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=9492

As for reasons to oppose the registry? Well... I`m glad you asked.

Registration does not equate to a safer society as promised by our government. The most recent firearms registration laws are a proven failure decades before they were even drafted. It was even proven in Canada! Registration of restricted firearms, which includes but is not limited to handguns, has been enforced since the 1930s. The rate of violent crime with the use of handguns has been on the rise since. These facts were communicated to our government. Handguns have been the weapon of choice for crimes committed with a firearm. What would make the registration of NON-restricted firearms, which does NOT include handguns, have any effect on lowering violent crime rates? I feel we have been swindled by our own government, and we had to pay the expenses for the them to con us!

The firearm registry cost over 1 billion taxpayer dollars... that we can account for. Were talking about YOUR money that is suppose to help build and maintain a better Canada. Recall Sheila Fraser`s audit from last year. She stated that she could NOT account for the total cost of the firearms registry because of the irregular and inconsistent fashion expenses were tracked. The actual total cost is likely over 2 billion dollars by now. Our money well wasted.

Prevention of ALL violence would be a better way to have spent that amount of money. The firearms registry is a solution concocted by people who haven’t even identified the problem. My opinion is firearm use in violent crime is a symptom of a problem. The problem is people resorting to violence as a solution. Find a way to reduce this habit and not only will you reduce firearm related violence, but violence overall. The firearms registry is just tracking LEGALLY purchased firearms that are rarely used in the commission of a violent crime. It is narrowly focused on symptoms, rather than the problem. Like bandaging your wounds as a means to prevent you from cutting yourself again.


The following part is just FYI.

Rebuttal to the mindless and ignorant "you have to register your car, why not your guns" propaganda:

Registration of automobiles is not mandatory. It is NOT illegal to posses, even operate, an unregistered automobile. You are only legally obligate to register an automobile IF you operate it on public roads. This means you can have your newly purchased automobile towed to private property. Then drive it, within private property, until it can no longer be driven, without ever having it registered. And you would not have broken any laws. Even if you drove an unregistered automobile on public roads, it would not be a criminal code offence. It`s interesting to note that automobiles have caused many times more injuries and death than firearms.

Having an automobile registered has not prevented criminals from stealing and/or using them in a commission of a crime. If that was the case, what is causing the rise in auto theft? How about street racing, which has resulted in many innocent people being maimed or killed? The stated reason for the registration of automobiles is to recoup some of the maintenance cost of public roads.

Drawing analogy for reasons to register cars versus registering firearms is like comparing apples to poetry.

 

[Marvin]

"Police officers responding to a domestic emergency where spousal abuse is involved should certainly have some means of quickly knowing whether a firearm is in the house."

Maybe have some sort of ID sticker on the door of gun owners so when they respond to an emergency they know right away when there is potential danger.

Great! Which also identifies that there are firearms on the premises for the criminal element who then break in, steal the gun and use it for bunch of illegal crap!

 

[dittman]

for your info it is totally illegal to have an automatic weapon in the u.s. however it is not that hard to find what you really want on the streets or to buy kits.

Guns are in our constitution the 2nd amendment.