PUBLICATION:
THE
REGINA LEADER POST
DATE:
2003.09.26
EDITION: Final
SECTION:
Viewpoints
PAGE:
B7
SOURCE:
The Leader-Post
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gun
registry has run out of ammo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politics
is like some odd machine that can only move forward, never backward. When a
government makes an error, its instinct is to muddle through, deny there's any
problem and hope for the best. Unlike the rest of us, politicians believe the
worst thing they can do is admit an error. They believe this diminishes their
all-important credibility.
It's
against this backdrop that we raise the future of the federal government's
gun-registry program. The bad news about it seems to never end. The most recent
consists of RCMP statistics, obtained by Canadian Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz,
indicating the computer system used by the registry has allowed thousands of
stolen firearms to be registered by new owners who unwittingly bought them. The
firearms centre has defended itself, arguing that it eventually
"catches" some weapons and returns them to their rightful owners.
This
is small consolation, though, and we wonder if the political climate is turning
against the very existence of the gun registry, which was created with the good
intention of preventing firearms deaths like those of the horrible
"Montreal massacre" of 1989, but has turned into a money-gobbling
monster, generating relatively few results at considerable cost.
The
registry is basically aimed at professional criminals and the mentally unstable.
But these are the very groups that are ignoring the registry and buying guns on
the ubiquitous black market -- while the program instead ensnares farmers and
hunters who use firearms for legitimate purposes.
The
money poured into the firearms centre over the last decade is especially
infuriating when one considers the financial shortfalls that have bedeviled the
RCMP and other federal law enforcement agencies in the same period.
Prime-minister-in-waiting
Paul Martin, who has been, in effect, running against the leader of his own
party, has a good opportunity to show he's walking a bold new political course:
abandon the registry immediately and put the savings into beefed-up policing.
Admit the registry is a flawed concept, apologize -- and go forward.
------------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATION: CALGARY HERALD
DATE:
2003.09.26
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Opinion
PAGE:
A20
SOURCE:
Calgary Herald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another
misfire
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stolen
firearms sold to new owners who were unaware they'd been stolen, passed through
the registry even though Ottawa had declared it would be impossible to register
such a firearm.
The
feds might as well have taken the $1 billion of taxpayers' money, pasted it onto
targets and blown it to shreds with those guns. That would be an apt metaphor
for their colossal wastefulness.
As
Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz points out, the billion bucks flushed away on the
gun registry could have put 10,000 police officers on the streets. That's where
the guys are who don't bother to register their guns. They're called criminals.
They and their guns are still out there.
And
they shouldn't be confused with the law-abiding farmers, hunters, hobbyists and
other Canadians who have been victimized by this boondoggle.
-----------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATION:
MONTREAL GAZETTE
DATE:
2003.09.26
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial / Op-ed
PAGE:
A22
SOURCE:
The Gazette
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gun
registry proven useless
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
evidence seems conclusive: The federal government's $1-billion gun registry is
pretty much totally useless. One of the goals of this project, when the legal
groundwork for it was first laid in 1995, was to trace guns used in the
commission of crimes. Yet RCMP records made public this week reveal Canada's
billion-dollar registry is a big flop in this regard.
Since
1998, around 101,835 guns have been stolen in Canada. But the serial numbers for
guns reported stolen turned out to match more than 250,000 guns in the registry.
Over the years, manufacturers used to repeat serial numbers, a fact that didn't
stop officials at the registry from putting us all through this vast and
pointless waste of money and time.
Canadian
Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz, who unearthed these facts, also noted in many
cases when stolen guns were purchased, the unwitting new buyers had no trouble
registering the weapons, even though registry officials had said that could not
happen. The few stolen weapons that were traced had to be identified through
manual comparisons of features rather than the serial number.
Breitkreuz
argues Ontario's Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit has been more efficient in
tracing illegal guns. That unit identified more than 600 guns used in crimes in
2001 alone.
Gun
control is a fine concept, but this absurdly ambitious registry - which has cost
a billion dollars and counting, including another $10 million Parliament was
asked just this week to authorize - is a laughingstock.
The
current federal government insists on clinging to the wreckage while insisting
the ship is still right on course.
We
hope the next prime minister will prove to be a little more realistic.
--------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATION:
VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST
DATE:
2003.09.26
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Comment
PAGE:
A12
SOURCE:
Times Colonist
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A
95-per-cent failure rate
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Canadians
still not convinced that the federal government's billion-dollar gun registry
has been a boondoggle of overwhelming proportions should consider the latest
report on the success of the program.
In
tracking stolen guns over the past five years, the registry has matched only
4,438 firearms with the descriptions of more than 101,000 stolen weapons the
firearms centre attempted to trace.
That's
a success rate of than less five per cent - or, put another way, a failure rate
of more than 95 per cent.
RCMP
records revealed that all of the stolen guns that were located had been
registered under the Firearms Act after they were acquired by people who did not
know they were stolen.
One
of the key theories behind the creation of the registry was that it would be
impossible to register a stolen firearm.
It
turns out that registering a stolen gun is not at all difficult.
Part
of the problem is that serial numbers on guns are not necessarily unique,
because for many years, firearm manufacturers didn't give each weapon its own
serial number. As a result, when a rifle or a shotgun is stolen, other
identifying features such as the manufacturer's name, model and brand must be
compared.
Police
have reported 101,835 guns stolen since 1998 -- and the serial numbers on them
matched 250,305 firearms logged in the registry.
There
is no question that the registry has been a help, at times, to law enforcement
officials. It has, after all, helped find those 4,438 stolen firearms. With its
$1-billion pricetag, that's about $225,000 per firearm.
In
other words, with the money Canadians spend to have just one stolen rifle
returned, we could have hired three or four more police officers. That would
have meant more crimes could be investigated, and more illegal guns found and
destroyed.
The
gun registry has been a tremendous waste of money that has failed in a variety
of ways. We can only hope our new prime minister will take careful aim at it
once he's in command.