WHAT'S
GOING ON HERE?
by
David A. Tomlinson – July 2004
National
Firearms Association – www.nfa.ca
Back
in 1995, when the government was enacting Bill C-68 to impose stricter and more
expensive firearms control on us, I wrote several articles predicting what would
happen once C-68 became the law of the land.
I
predicted that the cost of bringing the new system into force would be over half
a billion tax dollars. Today,
everyone knows that the prediction was correct, because over a billion tax
dollars have already been spent on this failed system.
The
cost of operating the C-68 firearms control system is $100 million to $300
million a year.
The
recent announcement that the cost of registering firearms would be held to $25
million a year was as phony as a three-dollar bill.
The government had already authorized the spending of over $100 million
to operate the C-68 firearms control system for fiscal year 2004.
We
have all heard promises that the cost will be brought under control, that limits
will be imposed, that the problems will be fixed.
Those promises are not believable, because the cause of the high
costs is built into the C-68 system.
It
is not possible to cure those "high costs" problems by fiddling with
the law as it stands today. C-68
was written in a way that makes it almost impossible to change anything about
it, including the high cost of operating the system.
Some
people think it is easy to stop registering rifles and shotguns. It isn't,
because of the way the law is written. It
says that all "firearms" have to be registered.
There are only three ways to change that.
The
simplest and easiest way to do it would be to change the law's definition of
"firearm" so that a rifle or a shotgun is not a "firearm."
That would really look ridiculous, though, wouldn't it?
You
could change the laws (and there are many of them) that mention the word
"firearm," so that they do not use the word "firearm." Each law would have to list the firearms that are covered,
and not include rifles and shotguns.
You
could change the laws to eliminate the registration of firearms. That one might seem radical, but it is actually not.
There is no known way to keep a firearms registration system
accurate, and every firearms registration system in the world is riddled with
errors, omissions and duplications. There
is no known way to prevent errors, omissions and duplications from creeping into
a registration system, so its records get worse every year that it is operated. This year's crop of errors, omissions and duplications always
gets added to the errors, omissions and duplications that got in earlier,
so the data base gets worse and worse.
Scrapping
the registration system would do no harm, because the people who use firearms
for violent crime don't register their firearms.
You can search the registration system from end to end, and not find any
record dealing with the guns of any professional violent criminal.
The registration system is not worth the tax dollars we waste on it.
Surely, that was predictable and obvious?
I
also predicted that severe firearms control laws would increase violent crime,
instead of getting rid of it. That
prediction has also come true.
The
number of violent home invasion crimes has increased by 24 per cent. That happened, even though the number of young males (who
commit 70 per cent of all crime) has decreased, and almost all other types of
crime have decreased. That bad
effect was predicted when C-68 was just proposing to force all citizens
to lock up their firearms separately from any ammunition.
Now the current laws provide a guarantee -- to the criminals -- that no
honest citizen has access to a firearm when the home invader crashes into his or
her home.
It
is particularly irritating that home invasion crimes are targeting the elderly.
That is happening because the criminal does not want to confront a
resident who is as young and strong as the criminal.
Surely, that is obvious? People
60 and over were the victims in 15 per cent of all robberies in the home, and
that means that they were victims of home robberies about 4 times more often
than they were victims of other crimes.
In
60 per cent of home robberies, the criminals were using weapons. They injured or killed their victims with weapons in a third
of the cases, and injured or killed them with or without weapons in about half
of the cases.
Break
and entry crimes account for 10 per cent of all crimes, and 25 per cent of all
property crimes. Only 11.9 per cent
of break-in criminals actually get convicted.
A conviction rate that low means that most break-in criminals have little
fear of being arrested, let alone going to prison.
70 per cent of break-and-enter criminals who make it into court are
convicted -- but only 17 per cent of all break-in artists get caught.
Do
you get the impression that our crime control system is out of control?
David
A Tomlinson, NFA Legal and Past-President
National
Firearms Association
Box
52183
Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada
T6G
2T5
Phone:
(780) 439-1394
Fax:
(780) 439-4091
E-Mail: NFAinfo@nfa.ca