Canadian Gun Registration

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

Gun Registration - Canadian Tax Dollars At Work

[Canada’s billion-dollar gun registry employs 1,800 bureaucrats, who spend their days tracking down duck hunters and farmers. By comparison, Canada hired only 130 additional customs officers to protect our borders after Sept.11, 2001. Here are a few more eye-rolling facts about the gun registry, mostly unearthed by MP Garry Breitkreuz from Saskatchewan?]

Internal audits show that government bureaucrats have a 71% error rate in licensing gun owners and a 91% error rate in registering the guns themselves.

The government admits it registered 718,414 guns without serial numbers. That means either the bureaucrats forgot to write them down, or the guns didn’t have serial numbers in the first place. That’s as useless as registering a vehicle simply as “a blue Ford Explorer.”
To these gun owners, the government has sent little stickers with made-up “serial numbers” on them, that gun owners are supposed to stick on their guns. And everybody at the gun registry is praying that criminals who steal those guns won’t peel off the stickers.
Some 222,911 guns were registered with the same make and serial number as other guns. That’s not just useless - it’s dangerous. If someone else with a “Blue Ford Explorer” is involved in a hit and run, you’ll be the one getting a knock on the door by the RCMP.

Out of 4,114,624 gun registration certificates, 3,235,647 had blank or missing entries - but the bureaucrats issued them anyways.

In the beginning, the government’s firearms licenses had photographs on them - just like driver’s licenses do. But after hundreds of gun owners were sent licenses with someone else’s photo on them, the government decided to scrap photos on the licenses altogether, rather than fix the problem.

Private details about every gun owner in the country are put on one computer database, called CPIC. That’s valuable information to a peeping Tom - or a criminal. The CPIC computer has been breached 221 times since the mid-1990s, according to the RCMP.

In August of 2002, the gun registry sent a letter to Hulbert Orser, demanding he register his guns, and warning him that it’s a crime not to. Orser died in 1981.

Garth Rizzuto is not dead, but he’s getting older - he applied for a gun licence 21/2 years ago. He hasn’t been rejected. They’re still “processing” his application.

Some 304,375 people were allowed to register guns even though they didn’t have a licence permitting them to own a gun.

On March 1, 2002, bureaucrats registered Richard Buckley’s soldering “gun” - that’s right, a “heat gun” used for soldering tin and lead. No word yet on Buckley’s staple guns or glue guns.

Some 15,381 gun owners were licensed with no indication of having taken the gun safety courses - one of the main arguments for licensing.

The government spent $29 million on advertising for the gun registry - including $4.5 million to Group-Action, the Liberal ad firm now under RCMP investigation.

But all of these follies are trivial compared to the central, unanswerable flaw in the gun registry: Since only law-abiding gun owners will register their guns, how can the registry stop criminals?

Maybe there is a better way?

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It’s easy to criticise Canada for its rampant bureaucracy here and talk about how much money they are wasting trying to do a real job of registering their guns, but look at these numbers brother:
US 14.24 gun deaths per 100 000 people
Canada 4.31 gun deaths per 100 000 people
If there’s one country that needs to change its laws and attitudes to guns, what country would that be?

3

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
It’s easy to criticise Canada for its rampant bureaucracy here and talk about how much money they are wasting trying to do a real job of registering their guns, but look at these numbers brother:
US 14.24 gun deaths per 100 000 people
Canada 4.31 gun deaths per 100 000 people
If there’s one country that needs to change its laws and attitudes to guns, what country would that be?[/quote]

This is a very new program, only a couple of years old. You cannot credit the low gun death rate to it. As a mater of fact, gun deaths have been increasing since the program was put in place.

Also, U.S. and Canadian homicide rates (all homicides, not just gun deaths) have both been steadily falling since 1991 and are now virtually identical. In fact, over the decade U.S. rates have experienced a greater and steadier decline than Canadian rates.

Canada also has much higher violent crime rates than the United States.

It?s not all about guns.

P.S. Just so you know, Michael Moore is an inadmissible source on this subject due to lunacy.

4

Gun registries are one of those programs that penalizes the law abiding.

You have to go through this baloney and then risk the chance that changing rules will allow the government to come a knocking if your guns no longer fit the rules with respect to clip sizes or whatnot.

Meanwhile, criminals don’t give a damn about such nonsense. They ignore the registry and aren’t on the hook in any way now or in the future.

Come up with a program that targets the criminals, doesn’t waste shitloads of money and doesn’t penalize the law abiding and I’d be happy to consider it.

5

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
It’s easy to criticise Canada for its rampant bureaucracy here and talk about how much money they are wasting trying to do a real job of registering their guns, but look at these numbers brother:
US 14.24 gun deaths per 100 000 people
Canada 4.31 gun deaths per 100 000 people
If there’s one country that needs to change its laws and attitudes to guns, what country would that be?[/quote]

I don’t think you can compare those numbers straight up like that, at least not accurately. At least a couple other numbers would be needed: 1) rate of gun ownership; 2) comparative population density numbers – the last being the most important.

6

Wow!

I can’t believe that Vroom and I actually have the same opinion on a political topic.

Man, there may be hope for you after all.

Gun control = people control, pure and simple.

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Vroom is almost right on, with one exception…there is no gun registration scheme that you can dream up that will have a.) any effect on crime, b.) not harm the rights of the law abiding and c.) waste a shitload of money.

Gun control laws don’t do anything. I have seen this first hand. All they are is backdoor gun ban programs(slippery slope, if you will).

Yes…violent crime in America is too high. But look at Australia and Britain…they essentially banned guns outright and violent crime skyrocketed…including gun crime!

Perhaps we need to take a look at where we are as a society. Just look at the damage done to the family unit and the idolizing of people that are called heroes now but would have been shunned generations ago. Also, and I hate to admit this because I love violent and edgy media as much as anybody, but our entertainment sources are having horrible consequences on kids who don’t have positive role models and mentors to help them learn how to live honorable lives.

Stop trying to blame guns…most legitimate gun owners are actually model citizens and there is a mountain of evidence that guns are not the problem.

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[quote]JPBear wrote:
deanosumo wrote:
It’s easy to criticise Canada for its rampant bureaucracy here and talk about how much money they are wasting trying to do a real job of registering their guns, but look at these numbers brother:
US 14.24 gun deaths per 100 000 people
Canada 4.31 gun deaths per 100 000 people
If there’s one country that needs to change its laws and attitudes to guns, what country would that be?

This is a very new program, only a couple of years old. You cannot credit the low gun death rate to it. As a mater of fact, gun deaths have been increasing since the program was put in place.

Also, U.S. and Canadian homicide rates (all homicides, not just gun deaths) have both been steadily falling since 1991 and are now virtually identical. In fact, over the decade U.S. rates have experienced a greater and steadier decline than Canadian rates.

Canada also has much higher violent crime rates than the United States.

It?s not all about guns.

P.S. Just so you know, Michael Moore is an inadmissible source on this subject due to lunacy.
[/quote]

I mentioned no link between the program and Canada’s relatively low gun death rate. I mentioned the relative death rates to bring some perspective, add a dose of reality to the original post.

I never mentioned Michael Moore.

You and other forumites have said ‘It’s not all about guns’- but violent crime without guns usually doesn’t lead to death, but violent crime with guns does. It’s a no brainer.

I would like to see the data to back up your claim that US and Canadian homicide rates are virtually identical.

Ownership of handguns is a tragedy waiting to happen. For every intruder shot with a handgun in the US, 41 family members are shot in domestic disputes or by accident. Those accidents would not be included in your homicide figures, but they are just as tragic.

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[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
deanosumo wrote:
It’s easy to criticise Canada for its rampant bureaucracy here and talk about how much money they are wasting trying to do a real job of registering their guns, but look at these numbers brother:
US 14.24 gun deaths per 100 000 people
Canada 4.31 gun deaths per 100 000 people
If there’s one country that needs to change its laws and attitudes to guns, what country would that be?

I don’t think you can compare those numbers straight up like that, at least not accurately. At least a couple other numbers would be needed: 1) rate of gun ownership; 2) comparative population density numbers – the last being the most important.[/quote]

I feel you can compare them straight up. The bottom line- less dead. Less bereaved family members. Less agony.

10

[quote]JD430 wrote:
Vroom is almost right on, with one exception…there is no gun registration scheme that you can dream up that will have a.) any effect on crime, b.) not harm the rights of the law abiding and c.) waste a shitload of money.

Gun control laws don’t do anything. I have seen this first hand. All they are is backdoor gun ban programs(slippery slope, if you will).

Yes…violent crime in America is too high. But look at Australia and Britain…they essentially banned guns outright and violent crime skyrocketed…including gun crime!

Perhaps we need to take a look at where we are as a society. Just look at the damage done to the family unit and the idolizing of people that are called heroes now but would have been shunned generations ago. Also, and I hate to admit this because I love violent and edgy media as much as anybody, but our entertainment sources are having horrible consequences on kids who don’t have positive role models and mentors to help them learn how to live honorable lives.

Stop trying to blame guns…most legitimate gun owners are actually model citizens and there is a mountain of evidence that guns are not the problem.[/quote]

I totally agree with you on paragraph four. But in your last paragraph, you and other respondees have a naive view. This ‘guns are not the problem’ attitude is shortsighted. Yes, it takes a bad person+ gun to equal gun crime, but if that person never has a gun in the first place, they may commit a serious assault, but death is not as likely to take place. Surely that is simple to understand. I probably could not kill you with my fists in a street brawl. But to kill you with a gun, all I have to do is point and pull a trigger. A child could do it. Hey, they actually do - more and more.

11

[quote]vroom wrote:
Gun registries are one of those programs that penalizes the law abiding.

You have to go through this baloney and then risk the chance that changing rules will allow the government to come a knocking if your guns no longer fit the rules with respect to clip sizes or whatnot.

Meanwhile, criminals don’t give a damn about such nonsense. They ignore the registry and aren’t on the hook in any way now or in the future.

Come up with a program that targets the criminals, doesn’t waste shitloads of money and doesn’t penalize the law abiding and I’d be happy to consider it.[/quote]

I totally agree…

I would suggest that anyone who buys into the effectiveness of gun control look over the following study…very informative and mostly plain common sense.

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st176/s176b.html

All gun control does is disarm law abiding citizens and actually INCREASES the crime rate…most unbiased stats are unarguable.

A few key points from the study:

[i]- Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have restrictive or very restrictive gun laws.

  • 20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6 percent of the population - New York, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C. - and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns.

  • New York has one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation - and 20 percent of the armed robberies. Even more troublesome is the fact that the places where gun control laws are toughest tend to be the places where the most crime is committed with illegal weapons.

Other countries have had similar experiences. After Canada passed a gun control law in 1977, the murder rate failed to decline but armed robbery and burglary, crimes frequently deterred by gun ownership, increased.[/i]

And I would personally add that Philadelphia has very strict gun laws and high violent crime rate.

Criminals become much more bold when they know your not likely to have a gun.

Here also is an opinion piece I happen to like, especially the quote -
“Unfortunately, the world is still ruled by force, and a disarmed people are not free, but at the mercy of those with arms.”
Like it or not, it happens to be true.

So yes Canada’s gun registration is screwed up but in the end CRIMINALS don’t care if their guns are registered anyway.

BTW here is a related issue that many people don’t realize…it seemed somewhat odd to me at first but I think it relates in that…would a serious terrorist or criminal legally register a gun (barring shear stupidity)? But considering the reason for the Patriot Act, this just seemed rather strange…

SECOND THINGS FIRST:
Attorney General Ashcroft’s Protection Of The Rights Of Possible Terrorists To Possess Firearms
By MICHAEL C. DORF
Monday, Dec. 10, 2001

It was revealed last week that the Justice Department, in a move approved by Attorney General John Ashcroft, has prevented FBI agents from cross-checking the names of aliens detained on suspicion of terrorism against a federal database containing information about persons who attempted to purchase firearms…