PUBLICATION:
The
StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
DATE: 2004.05.21
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Forum
PAGE:
A16
COLUMN:
SP Opinions
SOURCE:
The StarPhoenix
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Gun
law 'fix' will backfire
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This
certainly isn't how the West was won.
If
Paul Martin's Liberals think the gun registry changes deputy prime minister Anne
McLellan announced Thursday will boost their popularity on the Prairies -- or
garner more votes anywhere in rural Canada -- they are deluded.
If
anything, the changes McLellan and Treasury Board president Reg Alcock announced
in Edmonton underline that an urban-dominated Liberal caucus utterly fails to
grasp the role long guns play in the lives of Canada's farmers and hunters and
the intrinsic value they hold for those who consider firearms a symbol of
personal freedom.
In
making the announcement, McLellan repeated what the Liberals illogically have
maintained since they introduced the gun registry law in 1995: "The
government of Canada is committed to gun control as an important element of
public safety."
What
her motherhood-and-apple-pie approach continues to ignore is the stark reality
that registering long guns and those who own them has nothing whatever to do
with public safety, and that Canada strictly has controlled the ownership and
registration of handguns -- the firearms commonly used by criminals -- for a
full 70 years.
What's
most frustrating about the government sticking with a long-run registration
system designed to humiliate and criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens is
McLellan's ready admission that "Canadians have made it clear that they
want a system of gun control that focuses on the criminal use of firearms."
While
McLellan at long last has promised stronger measures to help law enforcement
agencies crack down on gun smuggling, tougher penalties for weapons trafficking
and crimes such as possessing loaded handguns in public, she's done nothing to
address the justifiable concerns of long gun owners.
Consider
that Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers, whose need their long guns to protect
livestock from predators, have to provide detailed answers to such questions as:
"During
the past two years, have you experienced a divorce, a separation, a breakdown of
a significant relationship, job loss or bankruptcy," with bureaucrats
authorized to contact spouses, neighbours and others to see if a licence should
be issued.
With
other questions on the form delving into everything from the status of one's
mental health (including depression) to emotional or behavioural problems to
conflict in the home, the entire process seems designed not so much to protect
the public as to turn registration into such an embarrassing and painful ordeal
that it discourages gun ownership.
To
turn around the simplistic comparison often trotted out by those who wonder why
long guns shouldn't be registered while deadly-if-misused automobiles are: How
loud would be the outcry if auto registration required testimonials from
neighbours as to one's mental health or if an acrimonious divorce or bankruptcy
disqualified one from driving?
McLellan
easily could have enacted stronger measures to punish those who use any kind of
firearms in the commission of crimes without criminalizing otherwise law-abiding
gun owners. There's no reason why non-registration has to be a Criminal Code
offence.
Conservative
spokesman Peter MacKay is right that Alcock's promise to curb spending on the
registry to $25 million a year and make it more transparent with a distinct
allocation of funds amounts to an admission that the government has hidden the
program's massive cost overruns from taxpayers.
It's
tough to disagree, too, with his assertion that Liberals have "not a shred
of credibility" on their fiscal management of this program, whose cost to
taxpayers has ballooned from a projected $2 million to somewhere way north of $1
billion, with no discernible impact on crime rates.
As
Statistics Canada reported in 2003, the number of homicides in Canada actually
rose to 582, up 29 from the previous year. Even though the number of shooting
deaths was down to 149 (with 98 of those involving handguns) the reality is that
registering long guns and their owners in the name of "gun control"
hasn't reduced the killings. If McLellan wants to make Canadians, especially
women, safe from violence, Ottawa must do more than to register gopher guns.
What's
incomprehensible is that McLellan delivered her nonsensical gun law reforms in
Edmonton, where she's known as "Landslide Annie" for her narrow wins.
Rather than boost Liberal fortunes, the ignorance evident in the
"reforms" might cost the Liberals her seat along with others, as
westerners punish them for their shaky grasp of fiscal and moral principles.
---
"Democracy
cannot be maintained without its foundation: free public opinion and free
discussion throughout the nation of all matters affecting the state within the
limits set by the criminal code and the common law."
-The
Supreme Court of Canada, 1938