The Gun Registry Post I Wasn't Going to Write

I wasn't going to say anything about the gun registry on this blog. Because seriously, who needs that kind of abuse?

Of course my reticence didn't stop me from spending the past week leaving comments on every blog post and media article I found on the subject. And it wasn't like I actually thought I was going to convince anybody one way or the other.

I just got fed up with seeing the same old misinformation making the rounds.

The problem is, there really is an urban/rural divide on this issue, but it has nothing to do with who does or doesn't benefit from the long gun registry - it has to do with who has firsthand knowledge of our firearm licensing and registration system. City folk, by and large, do not own a lot of rifles or shotguns. So even if they support the long gun registry, their arguments tend to fall apart when those against it start pulling out authentic-sounding facts and figures. They have no way to contradict these people because they have never themselves registered a firearm.

I have. So let me clear up a couple of things for you.

1) There are three categories of forms we're talking about here: the gun registry (which is for the gun but connects it to the person), the hunting license (if that's why you want a gun), and the firearm license, which is either a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) or a Possession Only License (POL). You need one of those last two in order to purchase, own, or temporarily possess a firearm, and you need to take a firearms safety course before you get one.

2) There are no 'intrusive questions' on the gun registry form, unless you consider the length of your barrel to be nobody's business but your own. The only questions that might be considered intrusive are on the two firearms license forms. These are questions like, "Have you recently ended a long-term relationship?" and "Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness?" Personally, I think these are important things to know, but they have nothing to do with the gun registry.

3) Registering a non-restricted rifle or shotgun is FREE. I'll repeat that: there is NO CHARGE for registering a non-restricted long gun. Anyone who tells you different has obviously not registered a weapon since 2006 when the fees were eliminated.

4) The elimination of the registration fees was the direct result of complaints from people who owned multiple guns. It is also one of the main reasons why the gun registry came to cost so much to taxpayers.

5) You do not need to renew the registration on a long gun unless it's modified in some way. You do have to renew you PAL or POL - there is a fee for that, but it has been waived until next spring.

6) You cannot have a gun for 'home defence' in Canada. Legally. You can have one for hunting, sport shooting, or as a collector, but you aren't allowed to have one just so you can pull a Clint Eastwood on your front lawn. If you write in anything except hunting, sport shooting or collecting under 'reason for applying' on your PAL or POL form, they will not give you a gun license.

There are lots more facts and statistics at the RCMP's Firearms Program website, which you can browse at your leisure. The same website has all the licensing and registration regs just in case I've missed anything.

I did want to say something about this notion that 'criminals don't register their guns'. Frankly, I don't worry so much about criminals, or at least not the kinds of criminals most people are thinking of when they make statements like that. Even when I lived in some of the worst neighbourhoods in Toronto, I knew that when there were shootings it was generally just the bad guys shooting at each other.

But here in Milton, we just don't have a lot of gang-bangers or drug dealers or bikers or Mafia-types, or any of the sorts of scary career criminals you see on American TV (well, we do, but most of them are locked up in Maplehurst up the road).

What we do have in this quiet little town are drunks, abusive spouses and bored teenagers. Some of them have access to firearms. Most of them are upright, law-abiding citizens - right up until they're not. So for me as well as for all those other people trying to defend their 'rural lifestyle', the odds of getting shot by a previously law-abiding spouse, or a drunken neighbour, or some kid showing off his dad's .22 to his friends are much, much higher than the chances of getting shot by a gang member with an illegal handgun.

In other words, the people who tend to be the most vocal against the long gun registry are also the ones who potentially benefit the most from it.

As for exactly how effective the gun registry is in preventing domestic crime, protecting police, or keeping illegal guns off the street... I don't know. I'm just a gun owner, not a police officer, so I'll let the police themselves answer that question for you.

There. I've said my piece. Have at it.

UPDATE: Here's a chart based on homicide stats since the homicide peak of 1991, from the Department of Justice. The firearms registry was started in 1996. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

As a Hunter and Gun Owner...

I strongly object to Stephen Harper's efforts to abolish the long gun registry.

As a responsible, law-abiding citizen, I was perfectly happy to register my firearms, just as I am perfectly happy to register my car. Why wouldn't I be? And yet from day one, certain factions have desperately tried to paint the long gun registry as an intolerable government intrusion into their lives, a trampling of their rights, and/or the prelude to some sort of totalitarian regime. Such notions sound more like the paranoid rantings of American militiamen than anything I would have imagined coming from the mouths of my fellow Canadians.

The fact is, Canadians do not have the right to bear arms. Never have. In this country, gun ownership is a privilege, and one that comes with profound responsibilities. We are required to undergo training to learn how to operate a firearm safely. We are required to store and transport our firearms securely in a locked safe or case. We are required to keep our licenses updated, and we are required to register our firearms so that a) they can be traced if stolen, and b) the police can have valuable information when entering into a volatile situation.

For a responsible gun owner, none of these things should be unreasonable or even particularly onerous. And in fact, I have met very few gun owners who particularly object to any of them. The ones who do seem to be those who own guns for very different reasons than I do. For me, a gun is a tool. A means to an end. For them, guns seem to have an emotional and symbolic resonance that I apparently fail to understand.

The biggest complaint about the registry is that it became incredibly expensive. What few seem to remember is that the original costing of the registry was based on having registration fees of (if I recall correctly) about $100 per gun. But some gun owners bitched and whined - mostly the ones who owned half a dozen firearms - and the fees were reduced. Then reduced again. Then eliminated altogether, leaving all taxpayers to foot the entire bill. That wasn't the entire reason for the cost overrun, but it was the most significant.

In addition, the efficacy of the long gun registry has been severely hampered by repeated amnesties. Resistant gun owners have been able to put off registering their firearms almost indefinitely as the government keeps the registry in political limbo. The result has been very spotty compliance and a total lack of enforcement, which in turn allows critics to condemn the registry as ineffective.

Instead of looking for ways to make the gun registry work in the way it was intended, successive governments have tried to dilute it or kill it by making concession after concession to those who claim to speak for all gun owners, hobbling the registry's effectiveness and in many ways making things more dangerous for the law enforcement officers it was designed to protect.

Those who view gun ownership as a right or as some sort of symbol of freedom or manhood do NOT speak for me, and I don't believe they speak for the majority of responsible gun owners. I therefore urge the government to commit to the long gun registry by a) re-instituting at least nominal registration fees to help cover administration costs, and b) ending the amnesty and instructing the Ministry and law enforcement to begin consistently enforcing compliance.

(forwarded to the Office of Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources)

Holy Birdshit, Batman!

Geez, try to take a day off from blogging and just look what happens!

We got news of the Pooping Puffin yesterday morning at Garth Turner's campaign office shortly after Esther arrived, checked her email, and we suddenly heard her scream "OH MY GOD!!" from her office.

At first we thought the screen capture had to be a joke - something someone had Photochopped and tried to fob off to make the Liberals look dumb. There was certainly not sign of poop on the actual website any more, and who could believe that Mr. Iron Fist of Doom would ever have allowed such a juvenile piece of poop to see the light of day? But then I ran across K-K-K-Katie's sneering reference to it at SDA and I knew that it was really, truly true.

Best news I'd heard all day.

Oddly, after all the fuss and bother over pooping puffins, there is still one detail of this repulsive piece of web art that has gone virtually unnoticed:



FYI for you non-hunting types: that's not a shotgun, or any other type of gun one would ever use for hunting - puffins or anything else.

That, my friends, is Michael Ignatieff holding a military assault rifle. Much like the type of weapon that Kimveer Gill used in his rampage at Dawson College. Much like the ones the Quebec coroner in the case recently recommended, and Dion agreed, should be banned.

Interesting.