The Great Gun Control Debate

[Fishbone Jones]

Hacked or not, there is no unequivocal proof that the registry has been used by criminals to steal handguns. I'm not disputing this. I'm saying, at this time, it is not a 'fact'.

Legally registered handguns are rare and the criminals have no easy way to discover their location without access to the registry database.

Once more, legally licensed handguns are not rare. A simple search of the registry information supplied by the Ottawa Citizen about a year ago will prove that. Many times targeted owners are simply followed home from the local range where they've been shooting.

Why do you pry for information that you could not possibly need to know?

Not prying, just a simple question that really means nothing. It doesn't mean you own guns. It means you own a piece of plastic and should know about guns, which so far has been unproven.

BTW, are active service personnel using taxpayer funded equipment to spew anti-Conservative political propaganda?  That would not be nice.

No idea what you're talking about here. Because I'm not buying into your tin foil conspiracy theories, I'm anti conservative? Perhaps you should be selling it instead of smoking it. Read my history. Better yet, explain how you came up with yet another wild, unfounded accusation.

recceyguy = anti Conservative, what a friggin' hoot :rofl:

BTBTW, is anybody watching the watchers?

Exactly what I'm alluding to, and your last warning on the subject.

 

[murray b]

Hacked or not, there is no unequivocal proof that the registry has been used by criminals to steal handguns. I'm not disputing this. I'm saying, at this time, it is not a 'fact'.

Okay, maybe nothing will satisfy you.  All handguns were registered since about 1931 and from then on ,until the data went online, almost 100% of handguns used in crime came from black market sources.  All of a sudden, after more than 300 breaches of the database almost half of the handguns used in crime have been stolen from law-abiding registered gun owners.  It does not take a genius to see what happened and it is a very good reason to disband the registry completely and especially the one for handguns.

Once more, legally licensed handguns are not rare. A simple search of the registry information supplied by the Ottawa Citizen about a year ago will prove that. Many times targeted owners are simply followed home from the local range where they've been shooting.

There is a lot of stuff in the Ottawa Citizen.  What specifically are you referring to?  All I can find is a searchable database available to the entire world where it is possible to obtain the first two digits of the postal code of the location of any firearm registered in Canada. 

Not prying, just a simple question that really means nothing. It doesn't mean you own guns. It means you own a piece of plastic and should know about guns, which so far has been unproven.

Well, I’m a flashlight collector and not a gun collector but I sure wouldn’t appreciate having to register each flashlight and pay a recurring fee for every one of them.  It would also be terrible if some prick in Ottawa decided to add my lights with incandescent bulbs to some kind of list of prohibited lighting devices.  [Did you know that the CIV-2 down in the U.S. belonged to the same flashlight collectors club that I did?  It’s a small world, Eh?]

No idea what you're talking about here...I'm anti conservative?... Read my history. Better yet, explain how you came up with yet another wild, unfounded accusation.
recceyguy = anti Conservative, what a friggin' hoot :rofl:

How can I possibly know what you believe in your heart of hearts?  Keep in mind that conservative and Conservative are two different things.  Not long ago you posted something that I took to mean that you are against government policy to improve election security and in favour of election fraud.  Then somebody locked the thread.  That is an odd way for a conservatives to behave.

Exactly what I'm alluding to, and your last warning on the subject.

Your meaning is unclear because I do not understand exactly what the warning is about. Civilians do not really have written rules of conduct but I’ll bet you do, or, at least did at one time.   

Please be advised that if you continue to harass me then I WILL go and eat a bunch of tacos full of refried beans and I WILL drink lots of beer.  Then, with careful aim, I WILL fart in your general direction. 

It’s all fun till someone loses their sense of smell!

 

[Retired AF Guy]

All of a sudden, after more than 300 breaches of the database almost half of the handguns used in crime have been stolen from law-abiding registered gun owners. 

Can you provide the source for your information??

From  Statscan report from Feb '08 - Firearms and Violent Crime

Canadian homicide data from 2003 to 2006 indicate that where registration status was known, 7 in 10 firearms used to commit homicide were reported by police to be unregistered.2 Among persons accused of homicide, 27% were found to possess a valid firearms license. Data from Australia show that most firearms used to commit homicide are unlawfully held by accused persons (Mouzos, 2000).

Another type of violation involving firearms pertains to theft.  In 2006, there were over 3,100 incidents during which at least one firearm was reported stolen, about half (47%) of which were taken during the course of a break and enter, usually in a residence. Among the total number of firearms stolen, three-quarters were rifl es or shotguns (73%) and 8% were classified as restricted weapons (such as handguns); the remaining percentage were other types of firearms. Other than two years of increase in 2002 and 2003, incidents involving stolen firearms have been generally stable since 1998.

(Footnote from first quote above) 2. Depending on the year, anywhere from about half to two-thirds of firearm registration information is reported by police to the Homicide
Survey as “unknown”, usually because the firearm was not recovered or because investigations were on-going at the time of the survey. The following analysis refers only to those homicides in which the firearm registration status was known to police. This information should be interpreted with caution as these data are not representative of all
fi rearm-related homicides in Canada.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Well, I’m a flashlight collector and not a gun collector

Wow, chicks must be all over you like monkeys on a convertable at the lion safari  ;D
But seriously, you are arguing with the wrong guy.  Most of us don't support the registry.  Try not being so defensive, you'll come across more credible.  And most of the guns used by gang bangers come in through the States, FYI. 

Your meaning is unclear because I do not understand exactly what the warning is about. Civilians do not really have written rules of conduct but I’ll bet you do, or, at least did at one time.   

The code of conduct you were supposed to read before you accepted the terms of being on the site and got your profile approved.  The friendly warnings will start to dwindle off if you are just looking for a fight. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Too late ZC. He's already gone.

 

[mariomike]

The Gun Registry does Paramedics no good, as far as I know.
I was never notified of guns being registered to an address.
When you call 9-1-1 the Operator asks, "Police, fire, or ambulance?"
If the Call Originator says "Ambulance", they are immediately transferred to an Emergency Medical Dispatcher EMD, in another part of the city, who says, "Ambulance. Where do you need it?" Paramedics are dispatched even while the caller is still on the line. The EMD will update you via radio en-route. But, they can only tell us what the caller chooses to tell them. If anything. Our EMDs do not have access to the Gun Registry. 
You find out when you get there.  You can only guess what you will be walking into.

Under our SOP's, "Paramedics are reminded of their responsibility under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Section 43, (1) and (2).2 These sections exclude paramedics from the right to refuse work where the circumstances are inherent in their work and/or if the work refusal would directly endanger the health and safety of another person."
That would mean any 9-1-1 call.
Paramedics may delay service only if it is known that weapons are being used:
http://www.toronto.ca/emssoprecs/pdf/Patient-Care-and-Scene-Safety-Policy.pdf

So, even if Paramedics know there are guns at the scene - which they do not, because EMS is not connected to the Gun Registry - you still have to make patient contact without delay, unless you have "specific" information a weapon is involved.
If EMS was to delay patient contact, simply because an address was on the Gun Registry, there would be a potential lawsuit.

As far as I can see, and I have spoken to others still on the job, the Gun Registry has been of no use to EMS.

 

[Loachman]

Earlier estimates, and more credible than the Lieberals' phone surveys in the lead-up to C-68, indicated that there were five to seven million firearms owners in Canada, and that they collectively possessed fifteen to twenty-one million firearms. The Lieberals claimed three million owners with seven million firearms, and that has been revised down. This has been the biggest example of civil disobedience and/or lethargy that this country has seen.

As the current registry contains, at best, only half of the firearms that were lawfully owned, it is useless.

As it does not indicate where a registered firearm actually is, any more than the vehicle registry indicates where a given vehicle is at any particular moment, it is useless.

As it contains none of the firearms owned by criminals, it is worse than useless.

If a check of the registry indicated that a given number of firearms were registered to a particular address, there could be more or less (and both "legal" and "illegal") or no firearms at all at that address. Firearms can be lent, borrowed, rented, or leased without informing the police or Canadian Firearms Centre just as a car can be without changing registration. Possession and ownership are not the same thing, and both registries record ownership only.

If a check of the registry indicated that there were no firearms present at a particular address, there could be legal and/or illegal firearms present, as a lawful owner could be visiting and have a number of legally-owned firearms with him.

So what does it tell anybody? Absolutely nothing of value. Knives are just as big a threat, and every dwelling has at least one.

Firearms owners are among the most law-abiding citizens in this Country. We are far less likely to be a threat than a non-owner. One would be better off to be suspicious of an address that does not show up in the registry.

 

[KevinB]

One just has to look down here to see that Firearms Owners and CCW permit holders are much more law abding that non gun owners.

 

[larry Strong]

Rreproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act:

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100914/gun-registry-100914/

Layton says NDP has enough votes to save gun registry

NDP Leader Jack Layton says the long-gun registry may not be done just yet. Layton said Tuesday enough of his MPs will vote against a private member's bill to scrap the registry that it may be saved.

Layton said Tuesday "a very strong majority" of the NDP's rural caucus has decided to vote against the bill during a vote in the House next Wednesday.

Tory MP Candice Hoeppner tabled the bill, which passed second reading with the support of 12 New Democrats and eight Liberals. The Bloc Quebecois says it will vote against the bill next week, and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has ordered his caucus to do the same.

That puts the bill's fate in the hands of the NDP.

Layton had said his MPs can vote freely on private members' bills. As of Monday, four New Democrats who originally voted for Hoeppner's bill said they will vote against it next week.

Speaking to CTV's Power Play from the NDP caucus meeting in Regina, Layton would not reveal how many of his MPs he convinced to change their votes.

"My members have asked that they have the opportunity to make whatever announcement they have to make in their own ridings in their own way, because it's really from listening to their own constituents that they've arrived at this conclusion," Layton said. "And so you'll have to await those announcements over the days to come. But what I can tell you is that we now are very confident that that registry can be maintained and therefore fixed."

The NDP and the Liberals have proposed keeping and amending the registry to make it more palatable to rural voters, including decriminalizing first offences if they don't include other crimes, and respecting the treaty rights of First Nations people.

CTV News's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife said Tuesday if Layton is sure he has enough of his members who support saving the long-gun registry then that's what should happen, unless some Liberal MPs who previously supported killing the registry are absent from the vote. However, Ignatieff has said he wants all members of his caucus in the House of Commons when the vote takes place.

Fife said this gives Conservatives ammunition for the next election campaign.

"What they want to be able to do in the next election campaign is to go into Liberal and NDP ridings and rural areas and say, ‘this member of Parliament, he said he wanted to kill the registry -- and he didn't do it,'" Fife said. "And so from the Conservatives point of view, they think they can win seats in rural Canada as a result of the NDP and Liberal MPs who have changed their mind on the vote."

Tories deny ties to U.S. gun lobby

The news from the NDP camp came hours after the federal government was forced to deny Liberal accusations that it has ties to the U.S. gun lobby, including the powerful National Rifle Association.

"(There's) no connection whatsoever," Pierre Poilievre, the prime minister's parliamentary secretary, said Tuesday.

"The latest Liberal conspiracy theory is nothing more than an insult to rural Canadians and it is also false."

Poilievre was responding to charges from Liberal House Leader David McGuinty that the Tories are bowing to the U.S. gun lobby with their decision to scrap the long-gun registry. McGuinty also called on the Conservatives to come clean about any ties to the NRA.

In an address to reporters Tuesday, McGuinty offered no evidence that the NRA or other U.S. gun lobby groups have had direct influence over Tory policy. He only referred to recent media reports that suggest the NRA has been providing advice to Canadian firearms groups for their lobbying efforts against the long-gun registry.

McGuinty also cited a 2006 forum co-hosted by Tory MP Garry Breitkreuz that featured the head of the NRA as a keynote speaker.

But he said the Liberals want to get out the message that "the National Rifle Association, its members and its leadership, should butt out of Canada's gun registry debate.

"Canadians should be very concerned about the influence of the largest and most controversial U.S. lobby group on our gun registry debate," McGuinty said. "This is a government that is choosing to listen to a powerful foreign influence over our own police, our victim's groups, our medical experts (and) in fact, the majority of Canadians when it comes to gun control in this country."

After McGuinty repeated his charges during an interview on Power Play, Hoeppner called the allegations "another example of Liberal misinformation and nonsense.

"And the supporters of the Liberals and the long-gun registry keep spewing this kind of stuff into the public. The fact is they have no argument left to support their billion-dollar boondoggle, and so they put forward complete untruths and misinformation."

Hoeppner said Breitkreuz did not organize the forum at which the head of the NRA spoke. He was invited along with all members of the rural caucus, she said.

Poilievre said the government does communicate with firearms groups, but only Canadian organizations.

"The Conservative party is working with uniquely Canadian organizations in order to scrap the wasteful, billion-dollar, long-gun registry," Poilievre said.

In an effort to sway votes, the Conservatives launched a publicity campaign Monday aimed at the ridings of the New Democrats and the Liberals who originally supported the bill. The campaign includes radio and billboard ads that urge constituents to pressure their MP to vote to scrap the registry.

 

[PuckChaser]

So the only way for this bill to survive is to have the Liberals whipped into voting to save it, and the NDP to fold under Liberal pressure. Sounds like its only a matter of time before it dies, just put it to rest already.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I don't think that Prime Minister Harper (and most of his ministers) care very much, one way of the other, about the vote. They (PM Harper et al) have found and can exploit yet another wedge issue. Politically, a defeat might actually be preferable for the Tories. They can, in the next election, go into ridings held by known anti-gun-control Liberal and NDP members and say, "look, (s)he told you (s)he opposes the long gun registry but when we tried to kill it (s)he voted with the Toronto elite and against your interests."

__________
On a tangent: the problem with 'gun control' in Canada is not, in my opinion with either licensing or registration, per se - we, most of us, accept a fairly high degree of government intrusion into our privacy. A system of firearm licensing and registration that is analogous to motor vehicle driving might have been implemented with little fuss and at a reasonable cost. The long gun registry suffered from two major but common defects:

1. It was inefficient - too expensive in its early years. (Apparently it now operates at an acceptably modest annual cost.) That is too common with, especially, federal government programmes. Bureaucrats, including uniformed bureaucrats, are careless with the public's money and politicians are disinterested; and

2. Like the census, it relied too heavily on threats to turn ordinary Canadians into criminals over breaches of regulations that, in most cases, ought not, in and of themselves, be criminal offences. That, too, is common in the official Ottawa mentality; the bureaucrats who draft legislation for MPs and ministers believe that the criminal code is an everyday, ordinary tool that can and should be used to persuade Canadians to act in accordance with rules and regulations.

We, all of us, need an attitudinal change in Ottawa - one that goes well beyond partisan political allegiances.

 

[Edward Campbell]

More, in this column by Don Martin, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/glorious+defeat+Tories/3526062/story.html

A glorious defeat for the Tories

BY DON MARTIN, THE CALGARY HERALD

SEPTEMBER 15

Jack Layton believes he has saved the federal long-gun firearms registry. The Conservatives could not be happier.

The New Democrat leader is now promising enough flip-flopped votes inside his divided ranks to defeat the registry-kill bill when it reaches the House of Commons floor a week from today.

The bill-sponsoring Conservatives, who have erected anti-registry billboards in vulnerable ridings, unleashed radio ads against waffling opposition MPs, ramped up fundraising campaigns and hosted rah-rah-rifle rallies across the country, are secretly pinching themselves with delight.

If the House of Commons math holds and the Liberals and Bloc Québécois unanimously vote to support the gun registry backed by 29 New Democrats, Manitoba MP Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill goes down to narrow defeat with all Conservative hands on her losing side.

That means the search for the perfect wedgie, a Conservative "we need a majority" argument that could sway disgusted rural voters to their party without a corresponding seat reduction in urban areas, is over.

It could be a seat-changer in almost a dozen Conservative-competitive seats now held by rival parties, according to my friend and analyst extraordinaire, Alice Funke. How many seats do the Conservative need to win a majority? Why, that would be 12.

Had the registry meekly died as a one-day story next Wednesday, it would have wrung the neck of a political goose in prime golden-egg laying mode.

Let there be no misunderstanding about the polarization of this debate along party lines. It had nothing to do with debating the gun registry as either a useless money pit or legitimate law enforcement tool. This was all politics, very little policy.

Watching the Conservatives wrap themselves in a freedom-of-expression argument, insisting their 144 MPs were all voting their constituents' orders, was a hilarious misrepresentation of reality.

Nobody believes the Greater Toronto Area ridings held by Conservatives are uniformly against the registry, just as we know not all Liberal or New Democrat ridings support its preservation.

The government whipped MPs into unanimity of opinion by letting it be known there was an obituary waiting to be written for any who dared vote to back the registry.

That's why only Layton deserves praise for being the one leader to let his troops vote their conscience on behalf of their constituents, which reflects the intended purpose of private member legislation.

How he managed to convince six New Democrats to U-turn on their initial anti-registry positions requires an almost Machiavellian mindset. The blame (or credit) goes to a one-issue MP yahoo named Garry Breitkreuz who unleashed rabid registry overkill last month.

Suggesting RCMP were just itching to storm the homes of anyone whose gun registration has expired and seize their weapons was the sort of distortion that made it increasingly difficult for New Democrat MPs to join the Conservatives in a registry take-down. That may have been Breitkreuz's bizarre assignment all along.

True, having the National Rifle Association lobby group connected to the cause, while exaggerated, is not helpful to the Conservatives.

Things didn't get any better when they sent studious attack dog Pierre Poilievre to the microphone wrapped in the Maple Leaf to denounce the Liberals' anti-registry position as a conspiracy insulting all rural Canadians. Hogwash, that.

However, unless NRA manpower and money flowed north across the border, linked to Charlton Heston videos pledging a death grip on his divine right to bear arms, it only adds queasy optics to the government's anti-registry position.

With the federal gun registry apparently preserved for the next election, a strange sound emanates from the unlikeliest of places. Deep in the bowls of Conservative party backrooms, gleeful laughter can be heard from a government celebrating a defeat.

Don Martin writes for the Calgary Herald.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen​

I would not go as far as Martin and suggest that the Tories ‘engineered’ a defeat – I believe one should never blame a complex conspiracy when simple incompetence is a possible answer. But I do believe that the Tories have always been ready and willing (even eager?) to accept defeat in order to be able to exploit the issue in a (spring?) 2011 general election.

 

[PMedMoe]

Harper vows to end gun registry

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told supporters in rural Ottawa on Tuesday night that his party and his government will not rest until the long-gun registry is scrapped.

Harper’s comments came on the same day the Liberals accused the Conservative Party and a pair of lobby groups opposed to the registry of working with, and being under the influence of, the National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful lobby groups in the United States.

“This, friends, is typical of the arrogant intellectual contempt in which the Liberal Party holds so many people,” Harper said. “That registry has been there for 15 years, and what we know — it is never going to be accepted by the people in our society it is targeted at.”

While Harper called the registry ineffective, the Liberals mounted a campaign called “Save the registry, save lives.”

“This is a government that is choosing to listen to a powerful foreign influence over our own police, our victims groups, our medical experts, in fact the majority of Canadians when it comes to gun control in this country,” said Liberal MP David McGuinty.

The Conservative deny any links with the NRA and produced a list of Canadian groups they have worked with to end the registry. The groups ranged from groups for anglers and hunters to the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Yukon.

More at link

 

[observor 69]

NRA involved in gun registry debate
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 CBC News

Ontario gun advocate Tony Bernardo has said the National Rifle Association in the United States provides logistical and tactical support to his Canadian gun lobbying group, the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action. (CBC)
The National Rifle Association, a powerful lobbying group in the United States that advocates fewer gun controls, has been actively involved in trying to abolish Canada's long-gun registry for more than a decade, CBC News has learned.

Documents and correspondence obtained by the CBC show the NRA has provided logistical and tactical support to organizations such as the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action (CILA), established in 1998 to lobby Ottawa to shut down the registry.

The NRA provides the Canadian gun lobby group with "tremendous amounts of logistical support," and while the NRA's constitution prevents them from providing money, "they freely give us anything else," Tony Bernardo, an Ontario gun advocate and CILA's executive director, said in Canadian Firearms Digest in July 2001.

In 2000, the NRA paid $100,000 for an infomercial about what it called "the Canadian situation" that aired on The National Network in the U.S., according to Bernardo, who appeared in the video.

It cautioned gun owners the registry was a government plot to find out how many guns there were in order to seize them and leave citizens helpless to defend themselves.

Bernardo, a frequent guest on NRA chat shows updating U.S. gun owners on the fight to kill the Canadian registry, said the NRA was instrumental in helping him set up his Canadian lobby group, CILA, the lobbying arm of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA), and a mirror group of the Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA's lobbying arm.

More at link.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/09/13/canada-nra-gun-registry.html#ixzz0zbqoSRPj

 

[Nemo888]

This looks to me like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.  The 3% of GDP all members of the G20 spent on credit to slow the recession is ending. The real recession starts in January. Non partisan prudent financial planning for drastic world economic change is badly needed. Things like pension reform, how much federal deficit is acceptable and stopping the erosion of income divergence between the top 1% and the bottom 99% are what are important. Partisan bickering over irrelevancies is what we will get though. Expect abortion, gun control and welfare reform to rule the airwaves while mass unemployment and being trapped in McJobs burns through the country.

Though it might actually be a good time to buy a gun, lol. Anyone selling a high grade AR-15? I always want to buy one but never get around to it.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Though it might actually be a good time to buy a gun, lol. Anyone selling a high grade AR-15? I always want to buy one but never get around to it.

If you don't have an RPAL, you can forget it. If you want to get an RPAL, you've got about six months and a bunch of intrusive government hoops to jump through first. By that time it's even possible that the RCMP will have arbitrarily outlawed and confiscated all the ARs as they have done with a number of firearms types already.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I got my telephone interview from a woman in PEI about my RPAL application a few months back.

Her:" Why do you want a restricted firearms license, Mr Stevens?"

Me:"  You mean besides exercising my right as a law abiding Canadian citizen to have one, before you people can take it away?"

Her:"  Ummmm...."

 

[HavokFour]

Well, looks like the gun registry stays. It was a close race.

Fingers crossed the Liberals never come into power, at least with Mr. Ignatieff. Forcing your members to vote for something isn't very democratic if you ask me.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Unfortunately, HavokFour, forced votes along party lines are the rule and happen 99% (maybe not quite) of the time. It is when you get the rare and unusual "free" vote that Parliament gets interesting.

 

[stealthylizard]

It was wrong for Ignatieff to whip his party to vote against killing the registry, but do you really think that Harper let the conservatives have a free vote on the issue?  The only party leader, on this issue at least, that can be admired (sadly) is Jack Layton for giving the appearance that his MP's were not whipped.