Gun registration

[Argus]

Most of the money spent have been for screening gun owners not registering guns

The gun registry is the combination of the screening process and the registration process.

Key to preventing particularly domestic violence, and suicdes is the screening process which has information that is not documented in police data bases.

You are once again mistaken. There is no screening process involved with gun registration. That process (screening) is part of obtaining a firearms acquisition certificate.

Registration is for those who already have obtained such permission and bought their gun.

[maplesyrup]

The gun registry includes gun control. The screening process is part of the process to register your firearms. you need to go through the screening process before you can register your guns.

Most of the money spent has been for the screening process.

[Argus]

The gun registry includes gun control. The screening process is part of the process to register your firearms. you need to go through the screening process before you can register your guns.

Most of the money spent has been for the screening process.

(sigh)

None of the money has gone to screening. Zero. Zip. Nada.

The gun control process, which involves criminal checks and interviews - the screening, has been with us for a long time, and has nothing to do with gun registration.

Nothing

The costs of the gun registry are for registration only, and involve no checks or interviews regarding the background of those registering weapons.

[maplesyrup]

That is not true - It is all one and the same system. The gun registry is gun control and includes the screening process. The current screening process has been changed from what the process was before.

[Chimera]

Not according to the Canada Firearms Centre

Q. What is the difference between licensing and registration?

In many ways, licensing and registration under the Firearms Act can be compared to a driver’s licence and the registration of a vehicle. A firearms licence shows that the licence holder has met certain public-safety criteria and is allowed to possess and use firearms. A registration certificate identifies a firearm and links the firearm to its owner to provide a means of tracking the firearm

CFC-FAQ's

[Slavik44]

Jeez, I wonder what happened here. How sad!

Teacher slain, husband charged

Good thing we have the gun registry, or something real bad could have happend. Common MS, you keep giving us tragic events but never telling us what the gun registry did, except well FAIL.

[Argus]

That is not true - It is all one and the same system. The gun registry is gun control and includes the screening process. The current screening process has been changed from what the process was before.

No it's not. Look, go to the site and examine the instructions for how to register your weapon. You'll find nothing in there about background checks or screening. An FAC is entirely different. I had one myself at one point. It involves a criminal background check, and more. You get all this done before you buy a gun. After you have your gun you will then submit the proper forms - found on their web site, and register the weapon.

None of the money which went for registration had anything to do with screening.

[brianw]

That is not true - It is all one and the same system. The gun registry is gun control and includes the screening process. The current screening process has been changed from what the process was before.

wouldn't it have been in the interest of the gun registry supporters to break down the costs and only include the costs of the registry alone so that the figure wouldn't have been that high if, as you say, the figure includes every aspect of gun use?

Oh wait a minute, they did break it down and the $2,000,000,000 (boy that's a lot of zeros did I add extras by mistake?) was for the registration, correct?

[Pateris]

maplesyrup,

MOST of the money spent on the Gun Registry has to do with salaries of thousands of bureaucrats and the computer hardware to run the system.

The database that the registry is running on was built FROM SCRATCH by bureaucrats. They didn't even go buy the underlying software from Oracle or IBM. They started from a textbook on database technology.

Further, they trained bureaucrats with NO previous programming experience to be the programmers.

I have questioned a number of software company developers and they say that had the government gone out to the private sector to develop the gun registry database they could have had it done for a few millions dollars (including the hardware), not billions.

[maplesyrup]

Who do you think is doing the screening? Do you have any idea what the screening costs are? You have to thoroughly check out an individual, whereas to register a firearm you record a few details. The screening process involves brain work, the firmarm registration is basically data entry. It is obvious that screening costs substantially more.

[maplesyrup]

Jeez, I wonder what happened here. How sad!

Teacher slain, husband charged

Good thing we have the gun registry, or something real bad could have happend. Common MS, you keep giving us tragic events but never telling us what the gun registry did, except well FAIL.

The public as far as I know has no details about the incident.

Was it an illegal gun - do you know?

[shackwacky]

whether that was an illegal gun, or a registered gun, is a moot point. That gun, whatever the status, what used as a weapon against someone unable to defend themselves.

Thats the whole thing MS, registering guns, even this great big expenditure boondoggle .....well, it just doesn't work. Some crimes will be committed with registered guns, and the owners will vow that they have not seen that particluar firearm in a million years. Some other crimes will be committed with unregistered firearms, and the same people will say they have not seen that gun in a million years. So where does that leave the registyr?

[shackwacky]

Sorry, I am working with akeyboard that is doing a 50% at best. So if I mispell, or capitalize when I shouldn;'t, let me know.

New computer, should be okay in a few day.

[maplesyrup]

whether that was an illegal gun, or a registered gun, is a moot point. That gun, whatever the status, what used as a weapon against someone unable to defend themselves.

Thats the whole thing MS, registering guns, even this great big expenditure boondoggle .....well, it just doesn't work. Some crimes will be committed with registered guns, and the owners will vow that they have not seen that particluar firearm in a million years. Some other crimes will be committed with unregistered firearms, and the same people will say they have not seen that gun in a million years. So where does that leave the registyr?

You are missing the point of the gun registry. The goal is to have zero deaths of course although we will never prevent them all. Part of that process is to have a good check on the people before they get a gun. We need to find out where the gun came from, whether it was registered to the shooter, and what were the details of his screening process. They couple recently had split up and there is a spousal notification aspect to the licensing process.

[PocketRocket]

I hate to point out the obvious, but this still does not prevent sale of illegal, unregistered firearms.

About all the registry does, in event of a crime, is this; if the weapon is actually found by the police, and it does happen to be registered, then they can determine who legally owns the firearm, and where it was purchased.

That's all good if the owner is the shooter, but if the firearm was stolen, it just about gives the cops a starting point.

But it's still just after-the-fact. It's a close-the-door-after-the-horse-has-left-the-barn sort of solution.

It certainly doesn't help the victim of the shooting.

Sure looks good on paper, though.

But I'll tell you straight up, it doesn't make me feel any safer knowing that only responsible citizens are registering their firearms while the violent criminals are not.

[Argus]

You are missing the point of the gun registry. The goal is to have zero deaths of course although we will never prevent them all.

Let me be clear here. The gun registry was NEVER intended to reduce gun deaths or prevent crime. It was intended as a placebo by the government to gullible urban types fearful of crime. It was something they could point to and show that they were doing something about violent crime - without actually doing anything about violent crime.

They never had the faintest idea it would consume this much money, of course. And while they knew it would be unpopular they rightly decided most of those who would be angry were not Liberal voters anyway.

Now they cling to it with the determination of, well, of Liberals who refuse to admit they made a mistake.

There is NO purpose to the gun registry other than getting votes for the Liberal Party.

[kimmy]

maplesyrup,

MOST of the money spent on the Gun Registry has to do with salaries of thousands of bureaucrats and the computer hardware to run the system.

The database that the registry is running on was built FROM SCRATCH by bureaucrats. They didn't even go buy the underlying software from Oracle or IBM. They started from a textbook on database technology.

Further, they trained bureaucrats with NO previous programming experience to be the programmers.

I have questioned a number of software company developers and they say that had the government gone out to the private sector to develop the gun registry database they could have had it done for a few millions dollars (including the hardware), not billions.

If this is true, it's utterly astounding.

I have always believed that the spiraling costs were due to corruption, not incompetence, but if your information is correct, I may have to revise my theory.

Whether we keep the registry or scrap it, we at least ought to have an investigation into how this thing has become so expensive. I feel that we are owed some explanation for what happened, especially when they continue to ask for more money for it.

-kimmy

[August1991]

whether that was an illegal gun, or a registered gun, is a moot point. That gun, whatever the status, what used as a weapon against someone unable to defend themselves.

Thats the whole thing MS, registering guns, even this great big expenditure boondoggle .....well, it just doesn't work.

There's an error in logic here, SW.

The usefulness of the gun registry is not the shootings that occur but rather the shootings prevented.

Presumably, there are people alive today that, without the gun registry, would have been killed or maimed. Now, how can we measure such a number?

But to look at this question more clearly, we would have to consider how many people avoided death or injury because of the gun registry and how many could have been saved using the $2 billion in some other endeavour.

The gun registry was NEVER intended to reduce gun deaths or prevent crime. It was intended as a placebo by the government to gullible urban types fearful of crime.

I'm not so cynical, Argus. The politicians, feeling the heat of urban voters, went to the bureaucrats who cooked up this scheme. The minister checked the box.

They never had the faintest idea it would consume this much money, of course.

That's obvious.

I have always believed that the spiraling costs were due to corruption, not incompetence, but if your information is correct, I may have to revise my theory.

How much exposure have you had to Ottawa, Kimmy? The really stupid stuff gets hidden unless it starts getting expensive.

Kimmy, go to this web site, skip down and then check under "Professional, Administrative and Management Support Services". Click on a few of the contracts available, use your imagination and you'll understand how the gun registry cost $2 billion without "corruption".

[kimmy]

I have always believed that the spiraling costs were due to corruption, not incompetence, but if your information is correct, I may have to revise my theory.

How much exposure have you had to Ottawa, Kimmy? The really stupid stuff gets hidden unless it starts getting expensive.

Kimmy, go to this web site, skip down and then check under "Professional, Administrative and Management Support Services". Click on a few of the contracts available, use your imagination and you'll understand how the gun registry cost $2 billion without "corruption".

I lived in Ottawa for a while... when my dad uprooted the family to take a job with that Canadian telecom company that has generated so much negative press in the past few years. I know that Ottawa has many nice things, but in my experience not many nice people. The canal is lovely year round, and I went skating there. The Ottawa River is also lovely, and I bicycled and jogged often on the pathways on both the Ontario and Quebec shores of the river. I enjoyed watching people building Inukshuks in the shallows. I visited many of the sites of national interest. I navigated my crappy Plymouth Reliant amongst all the urbanites driving their European sedans to their high-tech jobs in the suburbs. And amongst all the suburbanites driving their European sedans to their government jobs in the city core. I amused myself with the irony that while people think Westerners are Canada's American-wannabes, most people my age in Ottawa seemed to pattern their lives after American music videos.

My time in Ottawa was the first and only time in my 21 years in Canada that I've seen an actual living maple leaf. I had thought they were like Unicorns or Dragons.

I spent enough time in Ottawa to know that if you're on the streets downtown at 3:59 pm on a weekday, you'd better take cover quickly; you've got 120 seconds to seek shelter before you're stampeded by government workers checking out for the day.

I felt like I got in touch with Ottawa, the place... at least as much as I cared to.

But of course, you're not asking after the actual city, you're asking whether I have had much exposure to the government culture. Of course not. I only know what the rest of you know, the part that comes out during Sheila Fraser reports and so on. Probably only a fraction of what happens.

I do understand that when you're doing something on a government-size scale, the price-tags can be astronomical. But I also understand that there are efficient ways to do things, and inefficient ways to do things. Purchasing software and hiring experts from a major provider of database services would be one example of an efficient way of doing things. If (as Pateris claims) the government decided to build a database from scratch, and spent time and money training bureaucrats to become programmers, that sounds to me like an example of an inefficient way of doing things.

I can't take for granted that what Pateris says is the exact truth, at least not until I read some hard evidence. However, I do think there is a strong case to be made for having an inquiry into how costs have gone so astronomically past the projections. Don't you agree? People who support the registry should be just as eager to see some accountability in the costs as people who are opposed.

-kimmy

[Argus]

whether that was an illegal gun, or a registered gun, is a moot point. That gun, whatever the status, what used as a weapon against someone unable to defend themselves.

Thats the whole thing MS, registering guns, even this great big expenditure boondoggle .....well, it just doesn't work.

There's an error in logic here, SW.

The usefulness of the gun registry is not the shootings that occur but rather the shootings prevented.

Presumably, there are people alive today that, without the gun registry, would have been killed or maimed. Now, how can we measure such a number?

You can't. And honestly, why would you presume it has saved anyone? Remember that you only register a weapon AFTER you've been checked out and given permission to buy one, ie, obtained an FAC in a seperate process.

Besides, as has already bee pointed out, it's just not that hard to get a weapon, even without an FAC. So why would a gun registry save anyone? Even one person?

[JWayne625]

The last statistics I read involved the Hand Gun Registry that was brought forward in 1934, and it was estimated that only 20% of hand guns were ever registered in this country. Now think how difficult it will be to register all of the rifles and shotguns. I would bet that those running the registry have no idea how many guns there really are in this country. Some people have stated they have no intentions of ever registering their guns, and who can blame them. Australia already pulled that fast one on their citizens, and then turned around and announced a confiscation without compensation. The result of which is crime has increased since then.

Every time we turn around government's erode our freedoms all in the name of security or some other lame excuse. I do not trust this government, period! They lie cheat and steal, how are any of them trustworthy?

[Hawk]

amen JWayne... amen

[maplesyrup]

Another Gun Mythology Myth bites the dust.

WHO ARE THE RESPONSIBLE SHOOTERS?

Kinda shoots to crap the nonsense about all these law-abiding gun owners, eh!

[Hawk]

As usual MS is avoiding addressing anything and merely spamming more of other people's words, you should seriously be banned.

[maplesyrup]

Police when they are called to deal with a domestic dispute can now get details if there are any firearms located at the residence. If there are registered guns there the police will decide upon their course of action accordingly. And no the system is not perfect, but what system is. Police use the system regardless of what the gun fanatics say.