Gun registration

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Four or so years ago, when the Canadian gun registration bill C-68 was passed, any attempts to speak against it were met with outrage because Canadians have always been in favour of gun control, and as a result most were not prepared to critically examine whether we really needed *more* gun control, and in particular whether there is such a thing as a bad form of gun control. Now, everything that opponents of C-68 predicted - including the massive budget overrun - has come to pass, and over the next three days gun owners will be marching towards our prime minister's home to publically break gun laws as an act of protest.

Here is an article about the protest:

The gun in the labourer's house

Here were the original objections to C-68, taken directly from my notes of a speech I gave at the time it was passed. Pretty much all objectors used the same arguments I did.
- Gun ownership was already highly regulated. Those with criminal records or a history of psychotic episodes were not allowed an acquisition permit, without which it was illegal to buy, own, or carry a gun under any circumstances.
- The terms of C-68 require gun owners - even those in remote rural communities who require guns for protection from bears - to complete extensive surveys on their private lives, notify the government of changes of address and prolonged travel, and submit to home searches without warrants at the discretion of the police.
- In 1996, the last year for which statistics were available before C-68 was passed, the total number of firearm deaths in Canada was 52. That's one year, 52 deaths in the entire country. Many of these were a result of hunting accidents rather than violent crimes. More Canadians were killed by cars than by guns.
- The government promoted the gun registration process as "user funded" based on a fee of $10 per gun, but opponents calculated that the cost to taxpayers would exceed $1 billion (it has) and would require pulling police off the streets to administer the registration process (it has).
- Over half the guns in ciruculation were stolen from homes known to contain them. We already have numerous scandals relating to misuse of police computers to plan a crime. A national gun registry provides a shopping list for gun thieves and promotes burglary of law-abiding gun-owners' homes.
- No country has ever reduced violent crime by introducing gun registration. Not one. Ever. This is because only the naturally law-abiding comply anyway. What works is gun control measures targeted at NON law abiding citizens, although the American NRA is laughed down every time they try to promote gun control measures that actually do work. For example, the state of Virginia has reduced the murder rate 65% by instituting a mandatory 5 year sentence for any convicted felon caught in possession of a gun, even if he/she has not used it to commit a crime. In comparison, Canada has never added more than a single year to a prison sentence for the use of a gun during a crime, although the law allows up to 14 years to be added. (The statistics in this bullet were true in 1998 but may no longer be true).

Comments? I'd like to hear from people on both sides of the gun control/gun registration argument on this one.

 

Hmmmm.

Since I'm in The States, I'll give my $.02 from there.

Our second Amendment uses the phrase "well regulated milita".

This is the reason that all states have a National Guard.

So, by *my* interpretation, if you own a firearm, you are part of that Milita. Instead of simple registration, I'd rather a see an Amendment that requires a person to qualify with that firearm, every year.

Safety, marksmanship, and concealed carry.

The National Guard takes care of it's own, just like the Armed Forces do. There doesn't need to be an oversight committee; the Guard is it's own oversight committee. Use the people that are in place already.

It would be a type of registration, but more importantly, each person would be trained and would *have* to qualify.

Or they don't own the weapon. Period.

I'm not saying you have to like MAD. I'm not saying Mutually Assured Destruction is even sane.

But it works.

So it's not stupid. Just people are...

 

I expect my opinions are easily predicted, but I'm with Sprite foursquare.

Not only is this nassssty government bureaucracy that has spun out of control monetarily, but it's also amazingly abusive to gun owners. Just because I own my Precioussss I have to lets the nasty government in any times its wantses?

Hearteningly, a lot of Canadians are resisting it, not registering guns, etc. Good commentary about it here and here.