Gun registry
 

How about that promise the conservatives have made to scrap the gun registry? It'll be nice not to be a criminal anymore just because I didn't fill in some paperwork.

I am a huge opponent of the gun registry and therefore will be quite happy to see/hear that the whole thing is scrapped. The only problem then is that we as tax payers ought to get our millions of dollars back, but good luck there!

All I want is to be able to be the legal possessor of my shotgun so I can hunt one weekend a year. I'm not going to go shoot up some whiteys in downtown T-dot. I am only going to by one box of bird shell a year. That's it. I dont' want to jump through any more hoops, adn I don't want to pay out my ass for 3 days of duck hunting.

I would be hunting if I didn't have to register my gun. I don't think that the conservatives will scrap it. Rather they'll do the same thing the liberals did. Spend millions of dollars on it just for it to be some crappy thing that no one participates in.

Why? I don't get it...

Folks, just like calling Universal Healthcare "Free Healthcare" (We all know it isn't free, our taxes go to it), I have to object to the language here!

Let us talk about the "Long-Gun" registry. Handguns have always been registered (since 1930, I think) and noone wants to stop that; what we want is for the Long-Gun registry to end.

What possible good can come of this? Where is the rationale?

People get confused when you talk about the "Gun Registry", and they think that we are talking about the whole registration system. Don't we want to know where the handguns are?

The fact remains that the general public is scared of firearms. They have never handled one, they have no training, they see them in movies and videogames, and the media sensationalizes them when crimes are committed.

The average liberal in Toronto pisses their pants when firearms are montioned, and can see no redeeming qualities of those tools. It is not irrational, just ignorant. I am scared of snakes... if I was to touch one, learn about them, and encounter them on a regular basis, I am sure the fear would subside.
It is the fear of the unknown at work here, and some think that if we could count all of the firearms, and keep track of them, then they can't hurt us. Unfortunately, it is like tracking anything else: the costs are enormous, and there will always be instances where the framework does not capture all of the data...

Alas, a conservative government minority cannot do as it wishes, something I am eternally grateful for. If it cannot scrap the Long-Gun registry, I think the next best thing would be for them to simply not fund it any more, and have it die under its own red-tape. Second best solution, but a solution at the end.

As an "average liberal in Toronto" I don't piss my pants when firearms are mentioned.

I think the registration of Long-Guns is rather pointless. I do, however, believe that continuing the registration of handguns *is* important.

The real divide, as I see it, is urban vs. rural. Guns in an urban environment are not the same as guns in a rural one. The issues are entirely different. While I would welcome a ban of handguns, I recognize that it is a practical impossibility to rid the streets of handguns. I'd rather the money was spent on crime prevention (addressing root causes and all that that entails) and making the laws stronger.

Absolutely right, Charlatan. Hand guns, I say ban them all. Get rid of them. They serve absolutely no purpose. Ban them, get rid of them.

But give us a break on the 'long guns' registry. I think when it comes to gun violence, long guns and hand guns aren't even in the same ballpark.

Hand guns do serve a purpose. I've got a .22 handgun that is ideal for killing livestock. You walk up to a lamb/cow/goat... lift the gun, place it between thier eyes and pop. Done. I rifle is a harder to use in tight spaces. I will not give up my .22 handgun. It is registered and it is legal for me to use. It is the only gun I own that IS regitered. I have not and will not register my hunting rifles.

Leave the handgun registry alone, it's fine as it is.
Strengthen home storage requirements for both handguns and long guns (this will keep firearms more secure and please the anti-gun crowd.
Toss the long-gun registry, it's full of holes, a waste of money, and serves no purpose.

The storage requirements are already quite stringent. Amunition and weapon must be stored seperately in locked cases. The gun must have a trigger lock.

I agree that storage requirements are quite stringent compared to what they used to be, but they are not as strong as you may think.
Both non-restricted firearms and its ammunition don't need to be locked in a case. One can remove the bolt, or put a trigger lock on, or put it in a locked case. A shotgun or rifle can be sitting in a closet all day long as long as it has a trigger lock applied or bolt removed. While it may stop someone from using the gun as soon as they grab it, it hardly prevents it’s theft or use by someone that is determined to use it.
Restricted firearms must be stored as you describe, but the cases that meet the requirement are a joke. A properly bolted down safe should be mandatory.
I have several firearms, both restricted and non-restricted and I have no problem with stronger storage rules.

There are more violent crimes with the use of a knife than there are guns. Both can kill. I no sooner would want to have a knife registry start (long or short knives) than see the "reinvented" gun regisrty of the 90's continue.
It's bad, just bad.
If you want to stop the violence, go to the source, either make the people not want to commit the crime or make the consequences so severe they are scared shitless to follow through. For all the ponts in between, they will always find a way to do a crime (gun, knife, baseball bat, poisoned doughnuts etc).

If the gun registry is disbanded, I hope the Auditor General get's to review the file just to find out why a 2 million dollar project ended up costing 2 billion.

what he said. verbatim.

Exactly, think of how much better that money could have been spent on shelters.

SCRAP IT!
 

the registry would work if EVERYONE complied ... getting everyone to comply is impossible ... therefore it should be scrapped ... and should never have been implemented in the first place, same opinion as most everyone, but i had to speak me mind, eh?

I think the whole idea of the gun registry is an exercise in futility. Until you can convince me that the criminal element is complying, I will not support it.

How on earth is a registry going to cut down on gun crime when the people committing the crimes are - you now - criminals! I don't think any of them will be waiting in line to get their stolen or otherwise untraceable weapons registered, no matter what the penalty for non-compliance.

From where I am sitting it looks like nothing more than an attempted money grab which backfired and has ended up costing billions of dollars that could have been much better spent.

A theoretical benefit from a gun registry:
If a criminal registers her firearm, then you might be able to track a firearm to the criminal when it is used.
If a criminal does not register her firearm, then you can put the criminal in jail if you catch them with an unregistered firearm. At the least, the gun can be taken away from the criminal.

Practically, this would require a constant ramping up of the punishment for owning an unregistered firearm. From a fine to an eventual jail sentence for owning an unregistered firearm as a larger and larger percentage of the unregistered firearms belong to criminals.

Now one could argue that this is a dumb idea, and not worth the cost.

For my part, I see little difference between registering handguns and registering long arms. They are both devices designed to kill the target you are aiming at, and they both have non-lethal sporting uses. Why the distinction?

Cost overruns:
From what I can tell (based off some slightly insider knowledge), one large reason why the costs ballooned was a bunch of poor amendments tacked onto the bill that ended up causing huge implementation difficulties. The data in the long arm registry had to be secret, shared nationally by police, yet completely seperate from any other network that the police used. This required building a national physically secure network. Then the first attempt (or two) failed to work because of the scale of the problem.

We had politicians designing the specs for an IT network.

I dunno, has an actual crime been solved with the registry? I think the 2 billion dollars would have been better spent on more cops or community programs.
Concealment. Why a .32 is prohibited and a .38 isn't, I don't know, you'll have to ask Alan Rock.
;)

Stockwell Day just announced they are killing the Long Gun registry.

They will keep the hand gun registry in place.

They will maintain the restricted weapons.

They will maintain the license process to be able to have a gun.


I can't say I am surprised.

Good.
We'll be back where we were ten years ago...sounds about right to me :thumbsup:

Imagine that, they're keeping an election promise. ;)