[F]or supporters, the registry remains both a valuable tool and an article of faith – especially in Quebec, where support for it remains the highest in Canada, recent polls show.

Ingrid Peritz
December 5, 2009
Referring to the Canadian firearms registry in the article ‘A SLAP IN THE FACE’ FOR VICTIMS.
[With emphasis on “article of faith”. Here is what a criminologist has to say about the gun registry:

[A]nalysts say there is no evidence to link the registry and drops in homicide. Irvin Waller, a criminologist at the University of Ottawa and founder of the school’s Institute for the Prevention of Crime, says the government could have invested the billions spent to set up the registry on more effective ways to combat violence against women. He said one method involves programs to educate teenage boys in high school.

The firearms registry, introduced by the Liberals in 1995, took years to get up and running and still doesn’t have full compliance, making it impossible to measure its effectiveness, Dr. Waller said. “It’s basically not been operational, so there’s no logic to assuming it would have any impact on anything,” he said, noting that homicides have been dropping in Canada since the 1970s, well before the registry was set up.

The last time I heard numbers for the number of crimes solved in Canada via the firearms registry (including the handgun registry which has been in place since the 1930s) the number was one. Not one per day, per week, or per year. But one in nearly 70 years. With numbers like that just what is it they think the firearms registry is good for? Sure, it will help some with confiscation. But if that is their goal then they should be open and honest about it. If that isn’t their goal then just what is the real reason for a firearms registry?–Joe]

Sixteen years after opponents of sensible gun laws argued that the Brady Law would be ineffective because criminals supposedly wouldn’t buy guns from licensed dealers, we see almost two million blocked sales.  We need to extend that success in blocking dangerous people from getting guns by requiring Brady checks on all gun sales and ensuring the appropriate records are in place.

Paul Helmke
President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
November 30, 2009
Brady Law at 16: A Public Safety Success Story
[Notice Helmke measures “success” in terms of blocked sales. Not in increased public safety. Also note that those 1.6 million attempted sales, if truly attempts by people not allowed to own firearms, were all Federal crimes and those people should be in Federal prisons. But, since the total Federal prison population (Table 2, pim08stt02.csv) is as below we know one or more of the following is true. A) The Federal prosecution rate is extremely low. And/or B) Those blocked sales should not have been blocked.

If those blocked sales were actually crimes then why didn’t Helmke call on the Obama administration to prosecute those crimes and increase public safety? Is a person who can’t be trusted with a firearm someone you would trust with a kitchen knife, a baseball bat, or a can of gasoline and a book of matches?

Helmke is of the opinion the prevention of gun sales is an achievement to be proud of–even when there is no increase in public safety and convicted felons seeking firearms are not put in prison.

I can only conclude that Helmke’s organization is, as many others have already noted, better named the “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership”.

The Brady Campaign–infringing a specific enumerated right since 1974. It is the 21^st Century equivalent of the KKK.–Joe]

The world is what it is. A planet full of mostly kind and compassionate peoples but unfortunately there are also a minority of sociopathic murderers who walk among us, acting like rabid dogs. They go by different names be it Jihadist, terrorist or just plain psychotic killer … and they’re one of the reasons we carry handguns.

Steve S.
November 30, 2009
wa-ccw · Washington State Concealed Weapons Discussion
In a discussion about the shooting of four police officers in Pierce County Washington yesterday.

Those behind the badge don’t believe more restrictions on honest gun owners is a reasonable, practical or constitutional response to acts of terrorism. As a retired officer, I know that America’s men and women in blue want to fight terrorism, to stop terrorists; not waste time keeping records on innocent gun owners.

Jim Fotis
November 19, 2009
Law Enforcement Alliance of America Executive Director