Here's the real issue -- what works? What protects police without unduly limiting the liberty of the subject? Hunting is a lawful and proper activity -- if anything it has been overly regulated -- some have been denied the right to hunt who, viewed fairly, should have been allowed to hunt.
But a gun that can kill a deer can kill a police officer.
Is there a good reason not to register guns?
Leave aside the culture-war politics -- why do people care?
They care because they believe the gun registry is the first step towards banning privately held guns. If that's the real issue let's address that issue and not the phantom registry issue. Is there anyone who, in a country like Canada, actually proposes banning privately held weapons?
And let's acknowledge the police have a legitimate concern -- being a cop can be, nay is, dangerous and angry/drunk/stoned people with weapons need to be handled with great care.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
By Laura Stone, Canwest News Service
OTTAWA — The head of Canada's association of police chiefs says repealing the long-gun registry would harm police officers' work and "could get them killed."
William Blair, chief of police in Toronto and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, made the strongly worded comments this week as the fight over a private member's bill that would scrap the registry raged on inside and outside of Parliament.
...
"Police officers rely on information," Blair said in comments posted on the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police website.
"Accurate and complete information is the best protection I can give them. Knowing (not assuming) who has firearms is valuable," he said.
"The registry gives officers information that keeps them safe. If the registry is taken from us, police officers may guess, but they cannot know. It could get them killed. We are going to fight to make sure the information they need to be safe is available to them."
10 comments:
Odd that not all police chief's have rthe same opinion:
"The gun registry has done little to make the streets safer," said Police Chief Rick Hanson.
"For the years it's been in effect, there are more guns on the street today - handguns and prohibited weapons - than I can ever recall, and that's since the gun registry has been implemented," added Chief Hanson.
Fair enough
I recall all those years ago being told by politicians that the long gun registry would save lives, reduce murder rates and reduce crime.
Now it seems it has been reduced to "it might keep cops safer" and that is from carefully selected individuals.
Bottom line. It was botched. It was botched because the strongest supporters of the registry believed that they were morally superior to the rest of us.They refused to lift a finger to fix the obvious flaws.
I for one do not have a problem with registering long guns but I also recognize that it will do little to prevent deaths. I also object to the horrendous corruption in the implementation of the registry.
Since the turn of the century, in a mere decade, 11 RCMP officers have been shot and killed in the line of duty. Long guns were the cause of death in 10 of these deaths. Additionally, the OPP lost one of its officers less than two months ago, Const. Vu Pham, shot by a “law abiding citizen” who was carrying a long gun in his car, to visit his ex-wife. It's pretty clear who is getting killed by long guns -- police and women.
James said, "Is there anyone who, in a country like Canada, actually proposes banning privately held weapons?"
You mean someone like former PM Martin who offered to use the NWC to ban all handguns during the 2006 election?
Maybe you meant your mayor?
"There are loopholes today that allow so-called collectors and hobbyists to possess handguns, and to carry them around our city," he told CTV Newsnet.
Miller said a significant portion of guns used in crimes are stolen from gun owners, and another significant portion came from the U.S.
He called for the federal government to close the loophole and install a national handgun ban, and invest more attention into securing our borders."
Surely you didn't mean Wendy Cukier? Nah, she wouldn't advocate banning guns.
Cheers,
lance
Anon: "Since the turn of the century, in a mere decade, 11 RCMP officers have been shot and killed in the line of duty. Long guns were the cause of death in 10 of these deaths."
Surely 11 deaths isn't enough to justify this massively wasteful program. I wonder how many dogs have killed people in the last decade. Let's ban them too. Oh wait, McGuinty did.
The bottom line is that the program was touted as a crime reduction program, and it never lived up to that. Probably a case of over promising, but it was a knee-jerk reaction to an emotional event in Montreal.
It's inconsistent for the top cops to say they want to keep the thing, but from the other side of their mouths admitting that it doesn't help reduce crime.
Anon: @ 10:44.
If your stats show anything they suggest that the registry has failed to protect people from being murdered by long guns (women or otherwise)s.
Cars we know are safer since the rate of death has declined over the decades. The registry unfortunately doesn't show this.
The money that was wasted on the registry should have been put into hiring more police and speeding up the court process. That would help reverse the dangerous underfunding the RCMP has been suffering through this past decade.
William Blair, chief of police in Toronto said;
"Accurate and complete information is the best protection I can give them. Knowing (not assuming) who has firearms is valuable," he said.
To own a firearm legally, one must obtain a PAL. If the Police search their data bases for that information, they can acquire information that is just as indicative as a list of what guns a PAL holder has. Someone who doesn't have a PAL, does not register long guns on the long gun registry.
Chief Blair does not further the cause of proponents of the long gun registry by making ridiculous assertions.
"Is there anyone who, in a country like Canada, actually proposes banning privately held weapons? "
Allan Rock:
"I came to Ottawa with the firm belief that the only people in this country who should have guns are police officers and soldiers."
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