GRITS MISFIRE ON GUNS
WE WERE WRONG ON THE RIFLE REGISTRY AND PM MARTIN'S HANDGUN BAN IS NO BETTER: IT COULD HURT HIM

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The phone lines to the Prime Minister are burning up. The last thing rural MPs want to talk about during this election campaign is gun control. By throwing the handgun grenade into their midst, Martin may have just kissed rural Canada goodbye.

No doubt his handlers have done their math. There are more voters living in cities than in rural areas. By proposing to ban handguns, he hopes to solidify his support in the cities and further contrast his "progressive" values with those of the "right-wing, pro-gun Tories."
It is a risky move but one which Martin hopes will solidify his appeal to the Liberal/left/NDP/ Buzz vote, especially in Ontario. It also repeats a history of Ottawa-made gun rules that underscore the growing divide between cities and the rest of the country.

Kim Campbell actually started gun control as we know it. As Brian Mulroney's justice minister, she introduced a firearms acquisition certificate for would-be gun purchasers, with provisions for training and medical evaluation.

Not to be outdone by a red Tory, the Liberals' Red Book in 1993 promised further changes to gun laws to promote "safe homes and safe streets." That promise paved the way for Grit justice minister Allan Rock to pass a new law requiring the registration of every single long firearm.
At the time, Rock said he would love to ban all handguns, but his natural caution and the caucus (of which I was then a member) convinced him to take a different path. His department studied the possibility of a total ban but recommended a limitation, instead, on all snub-nose guns with very short barrels, the so-called "Saturday night specials."

All hell broke loose. Turns out, the legislation would have banned some guns used in Olympic competition. When Susan Nattrass lobbied parliamentarians to legalize Olympic guns, she was joined by thousands of law-abiding citizens who shoot on a recreational basis.
Rural members were threatening to bolt our caucus. To smooth matters over, Rock asked a committee co-chaired by an urban member (the late Shaunessey Cohen) and a rural member (Kenora-Rainy River's Bob Nault) to come up with a compromise.

A fractious consensus was reached which left no one happy but which permitted us to limp through the 1997 election with a reduced majority. One element of the compromise was a recommendation that the gun registry not be run by the department of justice. (Caucus predicted that an Ottawa-based agency would be the wrong place to speedily deliver a registration system that had to be seamless, if the government was ever going to win over the naysayers. We were right!)

The registry was a bureaucratic nightmare which was so over-budget and underperforming that it became a constant source of embarrassment. MPs and ministers who had guns (and there were many) complained they couldn't even get through on the toll-free line to register. Eventually the whole mess was turned over to the RCMP.

By reopening the issue, PM Paul Martin may end up hurting his cause.

Most Canadians, in principle, favour limitations on the use of guns. Most do not use them in their daily lives. But for those who do, legitimately, the gun registry exemplifies all that does not work in the ivory gun-free tower of the nation's capital.

It also serves to reinforce the impression that the current registry is not working. If it were so successful, why are unregistered arms of all types littering the streets of cities like Toronto? Confused Canadians want to know why Karla Homolka can walk free and law-abiding citizens are getting hit with even more bureaucracy.

This latest move has little to do with gun control results. It has a lot to do with widening the split between progressive Liberals and regressive Tories. Unfortunately, the split goes beyond political parties. It serves to reinforce the view of rural Canadians that their voices, and their votes, don't really count.