With today being the anniversary of the tragic Montreal Massacre, in which a misogynistic extremist took a gun to 14 women before himself, many are repeating their calls to not end the long gun registry.
As I’ve said before, the arguments seem almost entirely emotional based, but this time I want to offer a piece of advice to the good-intentioned:
You don’t really want the gun registry, you want a long-gun ban.
Registered guns can kill people just as easily as unregistered ones (especially when the sociopath kills themselves after committing their atrocity).
So let’s actually make this debate about what it really is: Whether or not we want guns at all in our society, and not skirt the issue with ineffective, feel-good legislation.
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However, a registered gun can be taken out of the hands of someone convicted of a criminal offense, or someone who has been identified as psychologically unstable. That’s why, contrary to the claim that the registry has had no impact on crime, the rate of spousal homicide committed with long guns has gone down, since the registry was introduced, even though the rate of spousal homicide committed with handguns has remained the same.
Can’t you similarly revoke their gun license and demand any guns in their position be confiscated at the same time?
On the other hand, what reason is there to believe that registration will keep guns out of the hands of “psychologically unstable” people? Marc Lepine got a firearms license just a few months before he killed 14 people (and nearly killed more). Are we supposed to take seriously the idea that he couldn’t have registered his gun? Don’t advocates of the registry keep telling us that it’s a simple process, a quick form and a small fee? If so, then how would the registry have kept him from murder?
There’s also a dangerously authoritarian flavour to the idea that “psychologically unstable” people aren’t allowed to own dangerous things. If I’m in the midst of an adjustment disorder because my mother just died, do I have to give up my car, have someone operate my gas stove for me, give up my steak knives? If not, then why should I have to give up my guns? If it’s a matter of the severity of the “instability”, how severe does it have to be? Are we looking at cases where someone has been admitted under a Form 1 (that’s the Ontario law; not sure in other provinces)? But a Form 1 commits someone to an institution, in which case the person can’t get to guns anyway. So, clearly less than that, but how much less? Two points, then: why just the guns, as many other things are equally (if not more) dangerous; and, how “unstable” must I be before the government takes my property away?
I also call bullshit on the causal claim. Without a decent statistical analysis, there’s no good argument to conclude from two related factors — the introduction of the registry and the rate of spousal homicide with long guns — that one is the cause of the other. All renates are cordates, after all. Isolate the registry as a variable and show it had a significant impact on spousal homicides, and then you’ve got the beginnings of an argument in favour of the registry. Without that, it’s flailing.
Can’t you similarly revoke their gun license and demand any guns in their position be confiscated at the same time?
You can.
And you can hope that the otherwise law abiding gun owner who just happens to beat his wife turns over all the guns he owns.
Or you can give police officers the information they need to do their job better.
If Jimmy turns over three long guns and the registry says he has four, Jimmy’s goingh to have to come clean about the fourth.
Without the registry, that weapon is still in Jimmy’s hands.
Which scenario serves public safety and vulnerable people better?
CfSR, you clearly have no idea how firearms are seized by police in a violent domestic situation. The owner does not “turn them in”, the police obtain a search warrant and SEARCH the property or properties of the owner and TAKE all the guns they find. They do not rely on a registry that is very incomplete and proven to be riddled with errors. On top of that, it is legal for licenced owners to lend and borrow firearms any time they want. That means that your owner may legally have far more guns in his house than are registered to him, or that he has fewer guns because he has lent some of them out. The registry only gives a false sense of security to people who believe that it makes a difference.
With all the hand wringing about domestic violence and violence against women around the Polytechnique anniversary, one would assume that guns are used in virtually every case of spousal abuse. In 2002, from a reported 25,044 violent domestic incidents reported to police, a staggering 39 (yes, 39, that was not a typo) involved a firearm. That is 0.16% of all incidents. Knives, clubs and other weapons were used a total of 1269 times, with over 50% of all cases (13,789) having no weapon beyond physical force involved. Looking at that set of numbers, it would seem that firearms are not much of an issue at all compared to physical threats, knives and clubs.
The most telling statistic is the long term trend in deaths involving firearms. The trend has been downward since the 1970s. Demographics and economic factors have an impact and personal firearms licensing with personal vetting and national standards of safety training certainly contribute BUT there is no evidence that registration has in any real way contributed to greater public safety.
Registration does make the Liberal policy of banning all handguns and ALL semi-automatic firearms possible. What then is the real agenda of firearms registration when the policy has failed in all it’s stated aims?
A vote for the CPC is the only possible choice for firearms owners.
I have to say that I agree with the registration of motor vehicles. It has all sorts of positive benefits which I won’t go into now. So obviously I want to ban automobiles.
BTW I support the registering all firearms also.
The long-gun registry is a registry just like the handgun / restricted registry.
It only makes sense to continue to maintain this database; after all, long guns continue to make up the bulk of firearms in our society, and statistics show they are also among the most dangerous within a familial setting.
There are more than six and a half million reasons to want to see this registry continue to be maintained.
Will the registry stop spur of the moment rage killings of women, of anyone? Possibly not. Might it save some lives along the way? More than likely. Will it aid in the arrest and conviction of some who use these weapons against another? Surely.
The registry itself is not the only thing at stake here. You tamper with a component of gun regulation and societal attitudes towards same and you tamper with other things, willingly or unwittingly. Think big picture.
Why should I support an expensive boondoggle that has failed in every aspect? Multi-billion dollar programs must meet their goals. Gun registration is an expensive experiment that has not only failed in Canada but also abroad.
M.W. – You obviously aren’t involved in gun sports and you dismiss the culture out of hand. You give up nothing with your position – except of course the culture of millions of Canadians. Your “big picture” seems limited to an urban streetscape. You need to live in the country for awhile and travel our land then you might have a better appreciation of Canadian cultures and values.
Why should I give up my culture because society lacks respect for women? The safety of women will not be improved until society accepts that women are equal to men and cultures that include honour killing, arranged foreign marriages, Sharia Law, and that treat women as property accept Canadian values.
Most of these problems have resulted due to Liberal government policies. I see no solutions for solving these cultual problems coming from the Liberals (they don’t want to disturb their immigrant voter base). What I do see from the Liberals is a red herring gun control program that substitutes activity for effective programs that would address the real issues.
Your belief in the usefulness of the gun registry is unfounded and possibly based on personal bias. In 75 years of gun registration we have yet to see one criminal case solved due to registration! Wishing it so does not make it a fact.
The history of the Firearms Act and the bogus support of it by the Liberals has turned a long time Liberal into a voter for the CPC.
Aw not this again…
Pro registry got pwned here already
http://terahertzatheist.ca/2009/11/08/gun-registry-religion/
In regards to the argument ‘registering cars, why not register guns’.
Sure lets do it that way. A car only needs to be registered to be driven on public roads, vehicles used on private property do not need to be registered nor does the operator need to be licensed. The registration fee for vehicles was intended for road maintenance and construction so that vehicle owners pay as they are the ones using said roads. By this logic, a gun only used on private property for self defense or on a private shooting range will not be registered. If I register my gun, the cost will go towards the construction of public shooting ranges. Vehicles cannot speed on public roads without a fine, but on a private racetrack they can do as fast as they want. Registered vehicles can have the mechanical capacity to speed without being illegal. If we continue this analogy to firearms, the government can regulate how I use my gun on public property, but if on my private land I can play with a machine gun if I so wish. An unregistered vehicle gets a fine, so would an unregistered firearm (now it is criminal code charges ie jail)
The vehicle registry and firearm registry are nothing alike
cfsr…that was the line of thinking that brought in the registry, but the statistics do not show that to be of any advantage. If the registry had any impact on domestic abuse the statistics would show it. But nope, they show a consistent decrease in the abuse rate since the implementation of certification (showing you have no criminal record nor are insane) to buy a gun in the 70s. This was a broadly supported law, and no one contests the necessity of such control measures. The implementation of the gun registry is simply a point on this negatively-sloping( decreasing) line, the slope(rate of decrease) does not change, and therefore registration had no favorable impact on public safety.
Sources:
Gary Mauser, The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, Public Policy Sources, No. 71, The Fraser Institute, Vancouver, BC. November 2003, page 16
Gary Mauser, Off Target: Gun Control In Canada, Journal of Firearms and Public Policy, Vol 13, Fall 2001
The UofA has access to both on their servers.
Indeed the long gun registry is very similar to the handgun registry! They are both in need of removal 😉
Gun registry advocates are like cockroaches, once the light of truth is gone, they scurry everywhere. With facts they run! 😉
You ask if we want firearms in our society or not. That is not even up for discussion, given the ease with which illegal guns are smuggled into our country. You might as well say we should un-invent guns. Even in maximum security prisons, the most tightly controlled societies on earth, weapons are constructed and used regularly. Since it is impractical to remove weapons from the criminal element that will misuse them, the only practical solution is to allow law abiding citizens access to guns as well to level the playing field. Disarming private citizens only leaves them vulnerable to attack by criminals who will not obey gun control or any other laws they don’t feel like following. Just look at the UK, they banned legal handgun use over a decade ago and are currently overrun with criminal handgun use, as well as recently being named the most violent western nation, beating out even violence ridden South Africa. Canada made #6 on that list and the US wasn’t even on the list. It would seem that banning legal firearms ownership may have some unintended effects if the goal is to promote public safety.
In addition to disarming the law abiding among us, the removal of legal gun ownership ignores and destroys a very long and distinguished Canadian tradition of firearms use in hunting, outdoors activities and defense of our country and democracy through two world wars and numerous other altercations. That tradition dates back 300 years to the first trappers and settlers to come to this area, before Canada herself even existed.
One last thought. Wendy Cukier and the many other anti-gun activists say they are trying to protect women by disarming the population. Considering that over half of domestic assaults involve no weapon beyond physical force and that women are generally of much smaller stature than men, all disarming does is leave a smaller, weaker woman at the mercy of a bigger, stronger man. If they were truly concerned about the well being of abused women, they would be training and arming women with the object they hate most – a gun. There is no such thing as spousal abuse when staring down the barrel of a gun held by a strong, determined woman. Don’t regurgitate the tired argument that the attacker will just take it away and use it against her, either. There are many stats from the US (with well over 200 million gun owners giving a decent statistical base) that show it just doesn’t happen that way in real life.
What Wendy and her ilk are really doing is setting up women to remain victims and powerless for all time. If a man did the same thing, he would be roasted as a misogynist. When Wendy does it, it is called public safety.
Ms. Cukier and her followers believe in gun control as their religion. When a chapter or line does not suit they simply do a rewrite and issue a revised edition of the Wendy Cukier Bible. It is all very convient but you must accept it on faith as the science is against them.
Emotion, fear and ignorance of firearms and an unreasoning/unquestioning belief are the cornerstones of that new faith. They have a vision of a perfect world but just do not have a clue as to how to achieve it. What has the Coalition done to address the cultural problems that put women at real risk?
Pro registry got pwned here already
http://terahertzatheist.ca/2009/11/08/gun-registry-religion/
In regards to the argument ‘registering cars, why not register guns’.
Sure lets do it that way. A car only needs to be registered to be driven on public roads, vehicles used on private property do not need to be registered nor does the operator need to be licensed. The registration fee for vehicles was intended for road maintenance and construction so that vehicle owners pay as they are the ones using said roads. By this logic, a gun only used on private property for self defense or on a private shooting range will not be registered. If I register my gun, the cost will go towards the construction of public shooting ranges. Vehicles cannot speed on public roads without a fine, but on a private racetrack they can do as fast as they want. Registered vehicles can have the mechanical capacity to speed without being illegal. If we continue this analogy to firearms, the government can regulate how I use my gun on public property, but if on my private land I can play with a machine gun if I so wish. An unregistered vehicle gets a fine, so would an unregistered firearm (now it is criminal code charges ie jail)
The vehicle registry and firearm registry are nothing alike
cfsr…that was the line of thinking that brought in the registry, but the statistics do not show that to be of any advantage. If the registry had any impact on domestic abuse the statistics would show it. But nope, they show a consistent decrease in the abuse rate since the implementation of certification (showing you have no criminal record nor are insane) to buy a gun in the 70s. This was a broadly supported law, and no one contests the necessity of such control measures. The implementation of the gun registry is simply a point on this negatively-sloping( decreasing) line, the slope(rate of decrease) does not change, and therefore registration had no favorable impact on public safety.
Sources:
Gary Mauser, The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales, Public Policy Sources, No. 71, The Fraser Institute, Vancouver, BC. November 2003, page 16
Gary Mauser, Off Target: Gun Control In Canada, Journal of Firearms and Public Policy, Vol 13, Fall 2001
The UofA has access to both on their servers.
Indeed the long gun registry is very similar to the handgun registry! They are both in need of removal 😉
Gun registry advocates are like cockroaches, once the light of truth is gone, they scurry everywhere. With facts they run! 😉
Your comments got caught in my spam filter for some reason, rescued now.
I wouldn’t use Fraser Institute Studies, they have a heavy ideological bent, and also don’t peer review (only internally with like-minded folk).
Ah peer review. That is a mine field. Gather together three or four like-minded individuals and have a peer review. I have questioned this in detail before and have NEVER received more than an affirmation that a peer review was held.
Just spend some time examining the sources and do your own peer review. If the Fraser is inadequate search out the raw data yourself, form an opinion and then compare it to the Fraser studies.
All the statistics Mauser cites are referenced, and they do not come from that journal.
Mauser’s website has massive number of his publications saying similar things. Pick one 😛
I think it’s just a control thing, or maybe they want to keep track of everyone’s guns in case a civil war breaks out.
I believe everyone should keep a gun in their house…I know i would seriously think twice before breaking into someones house knowing somebody might be sitting there with a gun. I grew up on a farm…we needed to keep a gun around to protect our livestock from predators, and people hunted for lots of their meat…which is far healthier and much more humane way to get meat compared to your factory meat that you find in any store. As a kid…every farmer had a gun sitting around, right by the door…nobody thought anything of, nobody ever got killed or threatened. Kids learn young that you don’t play with guns, you don’t need a firearms safety course to learn how to be safe…you just knew. It was a way of life.
The claim that the northern territories and rural areas don’t need long gun registration and an FAC process are ironic.
Around the world, country by country and region by region gun shot death rates rise and fall with the % of homes with guns.
The NWT and rural areas are the only regions of Canada where gun shot deaths approach, or eclipse USA, Finnnish and Swiss gun shot death rates.
Those are the 3 developed countries with the highest rates of gun shot death. They are also the developed countries with the highest rates of homes with guns. More guns in homes, more gun shot death. A measured and observed fact, nothing for gun nuts to deny there.
Gun nuts used to have a mantra / catechism statement about the Swiss Militia policy of sending military long guns and paper boxes with 100s of round of military ammunition home with militia members.
The mantra / catechism went along the line of that policy supposedly proving that guns in homes did not correlate with increased gun shot death rates. As usual that was a case of gun nuts not bothering to do a reality check on their pet theories and arguments.
In fact the Swiss Military gun shot death rate was higher than the total gun shot death rate of neighboring countries such as France and Germany. It became such a widely recognized family homicide issue that the Militia had to abandon that policy.
The typical gun shot death, in Canada and in the USA, is a suicide or a personal dispute where an individual has fast access to a firearm.
If you cut one wrist you can decide it was a bad idea and call 911 with the other hand. If you shoot yourself in the head there isn’t much anyone can do for you.
Does it really make sense to listen to the whines of a subculture or clique whose members kill themselves, family members, and people they know at rates so far above the norm in Canada?