PUBLICATION: The Edmonton Sun
DATE:
2003.07.12
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial/Opinion
PAGE:
11
BYLINE:
DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN
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CANADA
TRIES TO SELL GUN CONTROL TO THE WORLD
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It's
like talking to a friggin' brick wall. Worse, actually: when you're dealing with
the federal government, you're always tantalized by the illusion of
intelligence. More than once I've sworn off writing another word about the
billion-dollar gun registry, that fiscal sinkhole that makes other white
elephants look positively grey in comparison.
That
the registry is a waste of money - incomplete, inaccurate, worthless from the
perspective of law enforcement - is beyond doubt.
That
it's made masses of newly minted criminals out of law-abiding Canadians through
its administrative incompetence is also a dead certainty. Most police services
are ignoring registry violations because they're too busy trying to catch real
criminals. Eight provinces representing well over half the Canadian population
have demanded the registry be shut down. The law is unenforceable because no one
wants to enforce it. It breeds public contempt for the law.
It
will continue to swallow more and more public money until the plug is pulled -
which, if the Liberals maintain their stranglehold on federal politics, might
well be never.
I
can understand why the Grits are reluctant to admit they screwed up after
blowing a billion dollars: no cabinet minister likes to be exposed as a
slackjawed chump with the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge in his hip pocket.
What
I can't understand for the life of me is why Ottawa is now trying to convince
the rest of the planet to repeat its ghastly mistake.
Recently,
Canadian government representatives at a UN conference on gun control sang the
praises of the registry project, basically encouraging other nations to adopt
our model as their own.
What
worries the UN delegates most, of course, is the international traffic in
military hardware.
Shipments
of weapons to the world's hot spots - usually from manufacturers in First World
countries through third-party flags of convenience - have gone a long way to
worsening some of the world's bloodiest and most protracted civil wars.
Choking
off the supply of these weapons would save a whole lot of lives, and it's
something in which the UN should get involved. But the problem is military
hardware, and that's where resources should be focused.
What
other nations should avoid like the plague is the unique Canadian delusion that
gun control requires keeping track of every rabbit gun and deer rifle.
It's
this baffling obsession with slapping a bar code on law-abiding Canadians that's
driving the cost of the registry up past the orbit of Mars.
It's
one thing to routinely lie to the House of Commons and the Canadian public about
the registry's real costs, to tweak estimates of gun ownership in order to
falsely inflate compliance rates (Stalin used to pull the same feeble tricks,
but he was never dense enough to get caught).
It's
quite another to attempt the same shabby shell game with the rest of the world.
God knows this government's always displayed a cringing desire to curry favour
with the UN (the better to prove our moral superiority to Americans). But
couldn't we buy respect with real accomplishments for a change? There are two
possibilities here. Possibly, the feds are hoping they can interest enough
foreign governments in copying the Canadian program to deflect criticism at
home: "If it's good enough for Belgium, it ought to be good enough for
you."
Too
gutless to do the right thing and scrap the program, they may see this as a
cheap way of saving face by exporting our national embarrassment.
The
other possibility is a good deal more depressing, because it would speak volumes
about our federal politicians' powers of self-deception.
These idiots may actually believe the gun registry is an achievement.