Liberals and Gun Control

[wyly]

It frightens me that people would cancel it to see that people would cancel the program without fully analyzing whether it is a very useful tool for the police.

police like to know if the home they've been called to has firemans on location, why do gun-strokers have an objection to police safety? why do they object to the police tracking who guns are being sold to and preventing them from being in the wrong hands?..I had a friend who was banned from owning firearms because of mental health issues(attempted homicide) without a registry a ligitimate owner could sell him a gun and the police would not know or prevent it, this info they want should they be called to his home in a domestic dispute...

and we have no issue with registering cars that are not designed to kill does anyone attach a dollar figure to that? I'm sure it dwarfs the gun registry costs...

[Molly]

Well right now police are using old registries to find guns that are not up to date in their paperwork. These are guns that, have either been passed down as an inheritance, or as part of an estate, or for some other reason are just sitting in the house forgotten. They have already collected over 400 guns. Now these are 400+ guns that cannot be stolen by theives, or sold by say a teenager or other family member with a drug/gambling habit, and used for crime.

That's why so very many guns went underground. The real pro-gun folk estimated it at millions, and were pooh-poohed, but I figure they weren't far off.

Not much of a stretch to imagine little Johnny selling his Grandpa's Colt .45, which has been sitting in a box in the attic/basement for 5 years, to his dealer for a bag of drugs. Stuff like that happens all the time.

Grandpas Colt.45 has nothing to do with the long gun registry.

[Molly]

police like to know if the home they've been called to has firemans on location, why do gun-strokers have an objection to police safety?

They still don't know.

why do they object to the police tracking who guns are being sold to and preventing them from being in the wrong hands?..I had a friend who was banned from owning firearms because of mental health issues(attempted homicide) without a registry a ligitimate owner could sell him a gun and the police would not know or prevent it, this info they want should they be called to his home in a domestic dispute...

That was already covered by FACs.

Edited September 23, 2009 by Molly

[Molly]

It frightens me that people would cancel it to see that people would cancel the program without fully analyzing whether it is a very useful tool for the police.

Detailed analysis isn't needed when something is an obvious dog on sight. We're well past first blush, and it's still a dog.

[Wilber]

If you can link it to the earlier crime, you now have a trail to follow if it was, for example, used in an unsolved murder.

Unless you do a balistics test on every gun when it is registered, you can't link it to anything after it has been stolen just because it was registered. Guns don't leave their serial numbers at crime scenes.

[Molly]

How is registration harassment?

Cost and hassle for a start. Suspension of some pretty basic liberties, to go with it. Even the determinedly law-abiding were run through the wringer, and to what end?

It was a response to Marc Lepine, not because it would be effective, but in order for government to be seen to be responding. It was a poor response.

[jdobbin]

Detailed analysis isn't needed when something is an obvious dog on sight. We're well past first blush, and it's still a dog.

I'd like to hear from the police before I'd drop the whole thing. If the police say it is a dog, then we should drop it. However, if they say is something they need for their job, I am all ears although I want details on how and some numbers to show it.

I was opposed to the gun registry as it was set up. I favoured a few other measures that gun owners said would be less expensive but effective.

[Smallc]

Cost and hassle for a start. Suspension of some pretty basic liberties, to go with it.

We have no right to carry a gun. It's a privilege that comes with strings.

[wyly]

Unless you do a balistics test on every gun when it is registered, you can't link it to anything after it has been stolen just because it was registered. Guns don't leave their serial numbers at crime scenes.

guns leave their own fingerprints(ballistics) on every crime scene they are used...and do assist in attaining a conviction on apprehension of a suspect...

even if no crime is commited with the stolen weapon merely being in posession of a stolen weapon brings additional charges, something that would be difficult to prove without a registry...

[wyly]

Cost and hassle for a start. Suspension of some pretty basic liberties, to go with it. Even the determinedly law-abiding were run through the wringer, and to what end?

then lets cancel auto registration as well...you'll have no issue with the fraud cases and rise in auto theft that'll accompany that idea right...

It was a response to Marc Lepine, not because it would be effective, but in order for government to be seen to be responding. It was a poor response.

no system will ever be perfect some mentally disturbed person will always pop up somewhere, but with background checks many will be and have been prevented from owning weapons...

[M.Dancer]

then lets cancel auto registration as well...you'll have no issue with the fraud cases and rise in auto theft that'll accompany that idea right...

Tell me more about the Federal auto registry...

no system will ever be perfect some mentally disturbed person will always pop up somewhere, but with background checks many will be and have been prevented from owning weapons...

The are no background checks with the firearms registry.

[wulf42]

Controlling guns is like controlling drugs

can t be done...there will always be a market

and registration is only good for honest people!!

and since criminals do not careless about being legal ...what is the point??

[nicky10013]

Cost and hassle for a start. Suspension of some pretty basic liberties, to go with it. Even the determinedly law-abiding were run through the wringer, and to what end?

It was a response to Marc Lepine, not because it would be effective, but in order for government to be seen to be responding. It was a poor response.

Owning a weapon isn't a right guaranteed by anything. It doesn't violate any civil liberties whatsover. Hunting rifles that people need is one thing, but in the end if you need it, you'll go through hell for it. Our government is there to protect us and we shouldn't expect anything less. If making people "go through the wringer" persuades one less person to buy a gun which could be stolen to commit a crime, I really have no problem with it.

My main question is why do people need guns? What use is a handgun other than it looks nifty in a cabinet and you like to shoot it at a piece of paper? Even a hunting rifle? Do most people NEED a hunting rifle? No, not really. So, then why is it such a shock that the government is trying to regulate products that most of which are solely intended to kill other people? It doesn't really strike me as an argument that has to be made. The government regulates most other things which could harm human beings, this clearly shouldn't be any different.

I don't know where you're from Molly, but at my university campus last year some guy who was running through (from the cops) dropped a hunting rifle in front of one of the residences because he and his buddies had just robbed Cartier. Why should I or my friends who still go to that school have to put up with that because Jim Bob and Skeeter in Northern Alberta don't like to "be put through the wringer."

If the gun registry helps along with an outright ban, so be it.

[Wild Bill]

I'd like to hear from the police before I'd drop the whole thing. If the police say it is a dog, then we should drop it. However, if they say is something they need for their job, I am all ears although I want details on how and some numbers to show it.

I was opposed to the gun registry as it was set up. I favoured a few other measures that gun owners said would be less expensive but effective.

Better pick your policeman carefully before you ask the question, jdobbin. The offical answer is ALWAYS that they want the registry!

The reason is quite simple. The police officials don't have to care if a registry is accurate or cost-effective. They don't have to care if it is an invasion of civil liberties either. Basically, they don't have to care if it is no more than a very clumsy and flawed too.

From their perspective, they would wish to keep anything that is even slightly useful in their work!

Now, if you asked a front-line officer how useful is a gun registry when he has to knock on a door and he would no doubt privately tell you that it is not very useful at all. That's because illegal guns are so easy for criminals to obtain that he has to treat EVERY knock as if there could be a gun waiting for him!

However, he's not the one who will be asked for official stands on such issues. Besides, simple games theory would tell police leaders that a flawed tool is at least slightly better than no tool at all. If it is far over budget and grossly inaccurate there's a chance it could be improved into a more cost-effective tool. It costs a police chief nothing to sit back and wait to see if it could happen.

It's only we ordinary taxpayers who care if a tool is useful and worth the money, since it is we who pay for it! Unfortunately, taxpayers seem to be split on such issues. Many seem incapable of separating their fear of firearms from their ability to critique the validity of a gun registry program. We see two main groups, namely those who feel safer with the mere thought of more gun ownership restrictions, regardless of what they are or actually do, and others who examine the specifics and if they find them wanting not only don't feel safer but actually become enraged over being fed a "bill of goods".

[jdobbin]

Controlling guns is like controlling drugs

can t be done...there will always be a market

So you favour decriminalization of all our drug laws?

[jdobbin]

Better pick your policeman carefully before you ask the question, jdobbin. The offical answer is ALWAYS that they want the registry!

I think I said a poll of all of that wish to answer the question would be sufficient.

Then, I'd like to see the numbers to verify if that they say is true.

The reason is quite simple. The police officials don't have to care if a registry is accurate or cost-effective. They don't have to care if it is an invasion of civil liberties either. Basically, they don't have to care if it is no more than a very clumsy and flawed too.

From their perspective, they would wish to keep anything that is even slightly useful in their work!

I disagree. And if it wasn't very efficient in their work, further study would reveal that.

It's only we ordinary taxpayers who care if a tool is useful and worth the money, since it is we who pay for it! Unfortunately, taxpayers seem to be split on such issues. Many seem incapable of separating their fear of firearms from their ability to critique the validity of a gun registry program. We see two main groups, namely those who feel safer with the mere thought of more gun ownership restrictions, regardless of what they are or actually do, and others who examine the specifics and if they find them wanting not only don't feel safer but actually become enraged over being fed a "bill of goods".

Think this is why I asked for a study before tossing it all out.

You favour just tossing it out without even looking? Or are you the least bit curious?

[wulf42]

So you favour decriminalization of all our drug laws?

i deplore drug use and think it is the root of all evil!

having said that i know it is unrealistic to think anyone

can control it..same situation as guns.Vancouver and T.O.

is proof of that...the guns they are using(AK'S,UZI'S Tech-9) are prohibited weapons

now!!! but they still have them and they always will!!

[Wild Bill]

I think I said a poll of all of that wish to answer the question would be sufficient.

Then, I'd like to see the numbers to verify if that they say is true.

I disagree. And if it wasn't very efficient in their work, further study would reveal that.

Think this is why I asked for a study before tossing it all out.

You favour just tossing it out without even looking? Or are you the least bit curious?

I've been following the gun registry closely, since it was first proposed. So far I have yet to see anything cost-effective, practical or logical about it. It seems to me to simply be an 'touchy feely' pseudo-solution to suck votes from emotional people.

So I HAVE been looking, for years now! I have little or no confidence left in the value of the Liberal gun registry.

That being said, I DO see value in a simple, cheap registration system like we always had. A delay of a few weeks in issuing a FAC, or Firearms Acquisition Certificate to run a quick check to ensure the applicant is not a convicted murderer out on parole would not be a bad idea either. Except that if the government bureaucracy ran true to form they would likely get so far behind they would just issue the certificates willy nilly.

Here in Hamilton we actually have law suits against the City for not issuing building permits and doing inspections on new homes until AFTER the owners have already moved in! Some of these homes proved to have big, expensive structural problems. The City has no excuse except to say that they had problems handling their backlog. So new homes were built and occupied before the permits were even cut, let alone any inspections, which of course are not of much use after the walls are up.

So no, I'm not a bit curious. I've seen all I need to see on this 'file'. Scrap it I say and go back to something cheap, simple and easy. Legal gun owners never had a problem with simple registration. It was all the hoops they had to jump through and the antique firearms they were forced to sell, not to mention the exorbitant fees! The Registry was a Kafkasque expensive nightmare for legal gun owners.

Yet anytime anyone questioned such problems they were battered down with accusations of being 'Bubbas' who just wanted to drive around in pickup trucks with gun racks shooting rats and neighbourhood dogs and cats for the sheer fun of it!

I suspect that if you had followed it closely yourself you might agree with me. It was never the idea of registering guns. We had always had firearm registration systems! It was the way THIS registry was structured that caused all the problems!

[jdobbin]

I've been following the gun registry closely, since it was first proposed. So far I have yet to see anything cost-effective, practical or logical about it. It seems to me to simply be an 'touchy feely' pseudo-solution to suck votes from emotional people.

So I HAVE been looking, for years now! I have little or no confidence left in the value of the Liberal gun registry.

But you have never seen a study to confirm your personal views?

So no, I'm not a bit curious. I've seen all I need to see on this 'file'. Scrap it I say and go back to something cheap, simple and easy. Legal gun owners never had a problem with simple registration. It was all the hoops they had to jump through and the antique firearms they were forced to sell, not to mention the exorbitant fees! The Registry was a Kafkasque expensive nightmare for legal gun owners.

Until I have seen a proper study of it, I don't believe cancelling it is any better than the lack of insight was put into starting it in the first place.

I suspect that if you had followed it closely yourself you might agree with me. It was never the idea of registering guns. We had always had firearm registration systems! It was the way THIS registry was structured that caused all the problems!

It certainly isn't how I would have done it. I still don't believe you cancel something based on a simple belief.

[Molly]

Owning a weapon isn't a right guaranteed by anything. It doesn't violate any civil liberties whatsover. Hunting rifles that people need is one thing, but in the end if you need it, you'll go through hell for it. Our government is there to protect us and we shouldn't expect anything less. If making people "go through the wringer" persuades one less person to buy a gun which could be stolen to commit a crime, I really have no problem with it.

Do you even have any idea how many crimes are committed in Canada in a year using long guns? Didn't think so.

My main question is why do people need guns? What use is a handgun other than it looks nifty in a cabinet and you like to shoot it at a piece of paper? Even a hunting rifle? Do most people NEED a hunting rifle? No, not really. So, then why is it such a shock that the government is trying to regulate products that most of which are solely intended to kill other people? It doesn't really strike me as an argument that has to be made. The government regulates most other things which could harm human beings, this clearly shouldn't be any different.

Our greatest use of guns was to dispatch animals in distress, or for butchering. If you have an alternate, equally humane way to do it, feel free to suggest it. We also shot predators and vermin, and sometimes even used a shotgun to make noise to scatter ducks and geese gorging themselves on our crops. And, honestly, it was nice to have access to a gun somewhere nearby as a a matter of personal safety, since police response in an emergency could be several hours. I don't buy 'protection' as a reason in the vast majority of circumstances, but .... I did tuck the 22 within reach behind the porch door a couple of times, when I didn't like the look of the folks in the yard.

One of our neighbours used her gun to kill a cougar that seemed bent on joining her in the kitchen.

But I've never seen the need for handguns, either.

I don't know where you're from Molly, but at my university campus last year some guy who was running through (from the cops) dropped a hunting rifle in front of one of the residences because he and his buddies had just robbed Cartier. Why should I or my friends who still go to that school have to put up with that because Jim Bob and Skeeter in Northern Alberta don't like to "be put through the wringer."

I see the registry didn't prevent them from having one.

If the gun registry helps along with an outright ban, so be it.

And that's exactly what folks who own guns said it was at the bottom of it: folks who were not interested in reasonable compromise, but in making gun ownership something between difficult and impossible, regardless of their usefulness.

Reasonable rules, controls and restrictions met no resistance at all.

[wyly]

Tell me more about the Federal auto registry...

silly ...the point is valid no matter how feeble your attempt at deflection

The are no background checks with the firearms registry.

Firearms Acquisition Certificate requires a background check, no FAC no gun to register "The FAC is not a license. It is, essentially, evidence that a background check has occurred, insuring an individual has not been deemed a threat to public safety and therefore, cannot be denied the right to purchase a firearm. "

[Molly]

Firearms Acquisition Certificate requires a background check, no FAC no gun to register "The FAC is not a license. It is, essentially, evidence that a background check has occurred, insuring an individual has not been deemed a threat to public safety and therefore, cannot be denied the right to purchase a firearm. "

FACs predated the long gun registry, and are not part of that legislation. No one is objecting to FAC requirements, nor to purchases being recorded, nor to a safety course requirement. No one is objecting to having themselves checked out and recorded as a gun owner, or even of being denied the privelege if they are found not suitable.

Your car is not siezed if you don't renew the registration, you are not subject to criminal charges if you fail to register a car that doesn't leave your property, and you are not consenting to warrantless searches of your home by registering a car.

[Molly]

Dobbin, folks have been studying it to death for over a decade, albeit, not impartially. Google can get you any number of analyses, in a heartbeat- some half-decent, most so one-sided as to be laughable.

The information is readily available to anyone interested -- but the issue is emotion-, not thought-driven.

It doesn't take a a pack of researchers combing gun-nut propaganda to report that Canadian-sourced long-guns (much less legally-owned, Canadian-sourced long guns) play a paltry role in crime, and that introduction of the registry had no discernable effect on it. Nor does it take that pack of researchers to tell you that it has been a stunningly expensive exercize, for individuals as well as govenment, even if it did accomplish its presumed goals (which it does not).

How much more analysis do you need than that?

[Wild Bill]

But you have never seen a study to confirm your personal views?

Until I have seen a proper study of it, I don't believe cancelling it is any better than the lack of insight was put into starting it in the first place.

It certainly isn't how I would have done it. I still don't believe you cancel something based on a simple belief.

Well, I guess it depends on your belief in 'studies'! As Molly has already pointed out, you can google up a study that will tell you whatever you wanted to know.

In politics especially, there is much truth in the old adage: "A consultant is someone you pay to agree with what you already wanted to believe."

So while I am not suggesting that all studies are worthless, in the final analysis I put my own beliefs FIRST!

This means that with the registry issue, the info and studies I have seen over the years since the registry was first proposed and then implemented have not impressed me enough with their methodology to convince me of the value of the registry's structure. To tell me that I need to see yet ANOTHER study just exceeds my patience. If YOU find a study you trust then give me the link! If you expect it to change my mind, it had better be a good one!

For after all, unlike some folks I've never been able to grant a point simply by being given a study or two. I've written studies and reports in labs over my life. I'm well aware that to blindly accept a study on face value is the same as choosing your medicines because the guy on the television ad was wearing a white lab coat when he told you it was the best choice!

This can demand time and effort. We are not all expert enough properly critique most studies but I believe that before you accept one you are honour bound to at least read it as best you can and make the attempt!

Otherwise, you are simply accepting a catechism based on how fancy are the priest's robes, not on how scientifically valid is the study in question.

So again, YOU find a study you like! Me, I'm like the guy who has a different church knocking on his door every Saturday morning, each one claiming THEY have the straight dope! I now can use their pamphlets to light my fireplace, confident that I'm not missing out on any infallible truth.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Wild Bill

[M.Dancer]

silly ...the point is valid no matter how feeble your attempt at deflection

Holy League of Irrelevant comparisons Batman!

Not sure that comparing a non existent agency with a non existent central database makes a point valid...but good on ya!

Firearms Acquisition Certificate requires a background check, no FAC no gun to register "The FAC is not a license. It is, essentially, evidence that a background check has occurred, insuring an individual has not been deemed a threat to public safety and therefore, cannot be denied the right to purchase a firearm. "

The background check with an FAC is simple and cursory. There are no psychological profiles, only a simple check to see if there are firearms restrictions and a criminal records. Even with a criminal record, an FAC may still be issued.

Edited September 24, 2009 by M.Dancer