Gun Registry Needs to Stay
Harper’s Conservatives have moved to attempt to put an end to the gun registry in Canada. The registry was created by the Liberals when in government to register long rifles, handguns having been subject to gun controls for years.
A private member’s bill was tabled in the House of Commons first. The bill submitted by Tory MP Garry Breitkreuz went too far in that it not only eliminted the long gun registry it loosed up controls on some other weapons like machine guns. The Tories then made the rather unusual move of tabling another bill in the Senate instead of the House first.
Since the Senate is Liberal dominated, and the Liberals have to this point vowed to defeat the bill, it appears the Conservatives are trying to appear to be getting rid of the registry while not really getting rid of it. They might make their western Conservative constituency happy by eliminating the registry, it will tick off voters they are trying to win over — like me.
Yes I know, the registry doesn’t stop illegal guns on the streets. Until we stop illegal guns coming across the border from the US and stop thefts, usually through breakins, of legally owned weapons, there will always be illegal guns on the streets.
What the registry does accomplish is it slows down the ‘casual’ gun ownership. The person who decides they want to have a gun around the place ‘just in case’. It also alerts police when weapons are on premises when responding to domestic assaults, home invasions or other volatile situations.
Of the 15 police officers killed in the last decade, 13 died as the result of the use of long guns. When it comes to suicide or domestic assaults, long guns are twice as likely to be used than handguns as handguns are more strictly controlled than long rifles.
Having experienced being robbed at gun point, a long gun, I’m pretty solidly in favour of all guns being controlled.
For a so called tough on crime Prime Minister, Harper sure is pretty soft on this source of violence. The Liberals had better not change their minds on this issue.
notice: The content of this post contains my opinions and my right to express them. I will respect your right to express your opinion in the comments as long as you’re not abusive and you respect my right to my opinion.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by PattiM on 4/21/2009 at 10:50 am, and is filed under Canadian Politics. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
