The utility of gun registration

As you probably know Canada recently received another data point on the utility of gun registration. This well worded response sums it up well:

Well thought out goals and plans do not change with the intrusion of events by one deranged individual. He had two weapons and both, actually, were registered. I don’t know what you would put in place to prevent that from happening.

In slightly different circumstances and what is just barely below the surface in this example of failure is the response the anti-gun bigots are working toward. Gun registration actually does have some utility it’s just that in this particular instance the proponents were caught in a weak position and weren’t able to take advantage of it. What is needed to take advantage of the real goal of registration is a emergency or crisis, real or manufactured, at the national level. In that sort of situation the bigots make the claim there is only one solution–they have no option but to confiscate privately owned firearms. This, of course, has all too often enabled the Final Solution for other “problems” and must be vigorously resisted. It fails my Jews In the Attic Test.

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4 thoughts on “The utility of gun registration

  1. Sadly, the Conservative Party of Canada are playing a little fast and loose with their “promises”; if you read the first sentence, you will see that “Westlock-St. Paul MP Brian Storseth says the Harper government won’t be budging on its position in eliminating the long gun registry.”

    The CPC, in its various guises as the Reform Party, then the Alliance Party, and now the Conservative Party have, for the past decade, been promising the responsible firearms owners of Canada that they will “Scrap C-68!” (that being Bill C-68, the Firearms Act), of which the “long gun registry” is but a part.

    Now that they have a minority government, they are trying the old ‘bait and switch’ tactic, claiming that the passage of Bill C-21 will fulfil their “promise to gun owners”.

    It does nothing of the kind.

    While it *does* work towards eliminating the centralized registration of long guns, gun dealers will still be required to keep records of all gun sales, which can be inspected upon demand by the police. And this Bill does *nothing* to eliminate the most onerous sections of the Firearms Act, but most especially, it does not remove the ‘criminalization’ of gun ownership from the Criminal Code of Canada.

    It is Sections 91 and 92 that requires Canadians to obtain a license simply to maintain possession of firearms that they have owned and used legally for decades, under penalty of law. This is totally unconscionable, and unacceptable, to any free and law abiding citizen.

    The Conservative Party of Canada might be talking a good game, but you have to look beneath the glib sound bites and discover the real truth: they are set to betray the very gun owners who have donated money, volunteered on their election campaigns, and voted for them, in the name of political expediency.

    Mark my words: they will use this feeble effort to wash their hands of the firearms file, and gun owners, once and for all. If they lose, they can say “Well, we tried”; if they win, they can say “Promise kept”. Anyone who thinks they will revist the Firearms Act in this lifetime is deluding themselves.

    http://home.cogeco.ca/~akimoya/rfc/CPC.quotes.html

  2. I’m not surprised. I mention this same sort of thing in this post:

    http://blog.joehuffman.org/2006/10/08/state-of-mind/

    But the real point of the post is how we can overcome this barrier. We need to make anti-gun owner bigotry as unacceptable as racial discrimination. There really isn’t that much difference between the two and we must get the general public to realize that.

  3. Ahhh, ok, that aspect had escaped me – I wasn’t quite sure where you were going with the “utility” thing.

    I just wanted to point out the background information for your readers, in case they weren’t familiar with Canadian political machinations.

  4. Nimrod45, thank you so much for the additional material “from the front lines”. I really appreciate it.

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