“Documents
show that fear of prosecution and confiscation are driving guns into the black
market.”
Ottawa – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, the
Official Opposition’s gun control critic, released documents prepared by the
Justice Minister’s handpicked User Group on Firearms.
Even though the User Group’s actual recommendations were covered-up by
the Justice Department, the information provided exposes even more problems in
the Liberal’s problem-plagued gun registry.
“These documents are very revealing because they show how poorly
thought out this entire scheme was from the outset,” stated Breitkreuz.
“Why are they keeping the User Group’s recommendations a secret?
Why didn’t they give us the Minister’s response to these
recommendations? They always gave
us this information in the past.”
“For
example, the documents show that five years after passing Bill C-68, the
government didn’t know how many gun owners there were in Canada.
Six months after the licencing deadline, many gun owners remained
unlicenced. Many of these gun
owners fear they will be prosecuted if they apply for a licence under the only
option now available. The government has banned guns that are commonly used for
hunting and sporting purposes. Their
policies have driven prohibited guns underground and have helped create a gray
and a black market for firearms,” observed Breitkreuz.
Key issues
identified by the Minister’s User Group on Firearms:
Without
such a current gauge [of the number of firearm owners], no accurate target
is attainable under the present Licencing system.
There are a number of firearms prescribed as
prohibited that are suitable for target shooting and other legal activities.
The fear of confiscation prevalent in the
firearms community relative to the transfer of firearms from one class to
another is a major concern to firearms owners.
Many thousands of these [prohibited firearms]
were legally imported in the past, or in some cases brought back as war
trophies. No legal means exist
whereby these firearms may be registered to qualified owners. The methods of storage of these firearms are also unknown.
Their potential for transfer to questionable persons is unsafe.
There are still a significant number of Canadian firearm owners who have
not yet applied for a licence to possess their firearms (POL)…and such an
application may lead the firearm owner to believe that criminal charges may
be laid if this application is made under the only present option available,
a PAL.
There are a great number of firearm owners who
either do not know or do not realize that all firearm transfers must be done
through the Canadian Firearms Registry System (CFRS) with the necessary
approvals and authorization numbers being issued.
Such an effort will also have a significant
effect on the gray and black markets, which are fed in part by the
abovementioned misconceptions.
Many owners still do not know that they
possess prohibited firearms. The
potential for disposal to questionable persons increases with time and as
more publicity is done about these firearms within the present legal
parameters. The unknown storage
methods of these unregulated firearms may present a danger to public safety.
What’s
really interesting about this behind-the-scenes report is that the Justice
Minister has been made fully aware of the huge problems in the gun registry but
continues to plow hundreds of millions of tax dollars into it,” commented
Breitkreuz. “The huge cost
overruns, the errors and the chaos in the registry today, are a direct result of
the Minister not taking the advice of the people put in place to make sure it
didn’t happen.”
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For more information on the user group please click here.