PUBLICATION:
DATE:
2005.02.14
PAGE:
A10
SECTION:
Focus
BYLINE:
Fred Cleverley
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another gun registry fiasco
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One
of the reasons we were told that we needed gun registration was to protect
policemen. The registration of all guns would make life safer for the police who
would know in advance whether they were being sent to a house that contained
guns.
As
things turn out, it appears that this so-called benefit of gun registration is
just as fictional as the suggestion that the cost of registering guns could be
measured in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. We all know that the cost
has climbed to the billion dollar mark, and we are now learning that the
registration doesn't pinpoint the location of guns, even those that have been
listed.
Last
year alone the firearms centre lost track of 46,000 licensed gun owners. As
reported in the National Post, this means that front-line police officers cannot
trust the registration system with their lives or with the safety of the public.
What
happened was this. The licences issued for the first batch of guns that were
registered are coming up for renewal. Since the firearms centre is literally up
to its ears trying to sort out the initial registry records, officials decided
to extend some 773,218 licences, without charge to licence holders, as a means
of staggering the load of expected renewals.
The
extensions were mailed out only to have more than six per cent, 46,000 renewals,
returned as "undelivered" mail. In other words, six out of every 100
registered gun owners in
Some
owners may have moved without notifying the centre of their new addresses.
Others may have died, and their heirs have not notified the centre.
Whatever
has happened, the bureaucrats in charge of gun control in Canada have learned
that what they thought they knew about the location of guns is not necessarily
so.
This
situation has upset Garry Breitkreuz, a
Conservative Member of Parliament from
Mr.
Breitkreuz has correctly identified the biggest problem arising from losing
track of registered gun owners. He has suggested that the gap could have drastic
consequences for police officers who approach houses or apartments who either
mistakenly believe there is a gun on the premises, or incorrectly assume that
there is no gun.
In
the first instance, someone reaching for a cell phone could be presumed to be
going for a gun, and in the second police would face a gun that they had been
told did not exist.
In
reality, the problem is much larger than the released figures indicate. What the
firearms centre has identified may be only the tip of the problem. Trying to
avoid a new logjam of renewal applications on top of its current logjam of
existing applications, the centre used a computer to select, on a random basis,
registered gun owners who would receive free extensions on their existing
permits. Only when the post office was unable to deliver the gift extensions did
the Firearms Centre learn that 46,000 of those randomly selected had, for
practical purposes, disappeared.
The
Canada Firearms Act requires licence holders to notify the centre if they change
addresses. It is a Criminal Code offence to ignore this directive, with
penalties for conviction including a two-year prison sentence.
This
undermines support for legislation that appears to be more intent on creating
criminals than controlling firearms. Thousands of Canadians became criminals
when they missed the deadline for gun registration. It would now appear that
those who avoided becoming criminals by registering their guns on time have
since slipped into the criminal category by failing to notify the government of
a change of address.
It
is painfully apparent that the problem created by the firearms registry cannot
be fixed by throwing money at it. It is clear that the matter remains
controversial, with several western provinces simply refusing to prosecute
offences under the Canadian Firearms Act.
It
should be clear that, no matter how well intentioned, the legislation is not
coming close to accomplishing its goals. The control mechanism is jammed now,
and threatens to become more jammed as we proceed into what should be a program
to renew licences.
As
MP Garry Breitkreuz has warned: "People may be criminals and they don't
even know it." The Firearms Centre response, that the undelivered
return-mail rate for the renewal notices was lower than "industry
standards" for large mailouts, does not even recognize the real problem
that is so clearly identified.