PUBLICATION: The Vancouver Province
DATE:
2003.03.26
EDITION:
Final
SECTION:
Editorial
PAGE:
A16
SOURCE:
The Province
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Got
to bite the bullet; gun registry a bust
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It
isn't just the runaway costs of setting up and managing the federal Liberals'
firearms registry that prompts us to call for its demise.
Although
money is reason enough: Initially pegged at a net cost of $2 million, current
estimates have taxpayers shelling out $1 billion by 2005 and $2 billion by 2012.
Imagine
how much public safety we could secure with that heavy a budget. The Canadian
Taxpayers Federation did. A billion would:
-
Pick up 40 per cent of the nation's adult jail costs for a year.
-
Cover Vancouver's police services budget for seven years.
-
Fund an additional $3,200 for investigating every violent crime committed in
Canada last year.
-
Bankroll a $1.8 million reward for helping solve every murder committed in the
country last year.
But
it wasn't the highway robbery cost that made us conclude that the rifle registry
should be scrapped. Nor was it the blackmailing means by which Prime Minister
Jean Chretien bullied Liberal MPs and senators into approving more funds for it
which they did yesterday.
Although
that's justification too: Our leader threatened to expel any caucus member or
senator who didn't vote to approve an additional $59 million for this year.
They're after another $113 million for 2004. Those expelled wouldn't be able to
campaign under the Liberal banner.
But
that's not it either. What sold us was the argument that the program launched in
1995 was closer to being a wasteful, useless make-work project for bureaucrats
than an initiative to ensure our safety.
Statistics
Canada figures from last year show that as a nation, we're anything but root'in,
toot'in cowboys. Of 554 people slain, 171 were killed by firearms -- 31 per cent
-- while 383 people died as victims of a stabbing, beating, strangulation or
other type of violence.
"...it
all boils down to stiffer penalties, get the people off the street, the guns go
with them,"a Calgary police officer put it succinctly last month. We agree:
a gun registry is a poor, albeit costly Canadian solution to a judiciary with an
aversion to throwing tough sentences at violent criminals.
What do you think? Leave a brief comment, full name and town at: 604-605-2029, fax: 604-605-2099 or e-mail: provletters@png.canwest.com