Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s latest report on the federal firearms registry paints a pretty damning picture of the former Liberal government, but I’m pretty sure that the Conservatives view it in a slightly different light that I do.
Do I agree with the Conservatives that the gun registry has been a fiasco since it began? a waste of money? huge overspending? and ineffective toward the intended goals?
Yes, of course.
Do I agree with the Liberals, NDP and Bloc that the registry deters crimes and saves lives?
Not so much. I never believed that from the start.
But do I agree with the Conservatives now that the registry should be scrapped?
No, I don’t. Let me explain.
Here is just one of a raft of articles on the issue in the past few days, in case you need a bit of background.
The federal gun registry was never going to deter crime and save lives, since the people who are out committing crimes with guns are already breaking the law, so what’s one more broken law? They will continue to find guns or other weapons for their purposes and continue to feel that breaking laws, stealing property, and killing people is a reasonable way to go through life. This will continue unless we address the underlying problems which lead them to those values, or lack thereof. Problems like poverty, racism, educational standards, the gap between rich and poor, the general denial of equal opportunity, and many more. All of these are long term, and neither the problems nor the solutions make for good sound bytes.
That said, if the registry deters some people who were on the fence about owning a weapon in the first place, and causes the people who have guns for legitimate purposes to choose to register only those they use and get rid of others, then there may be fewer guns out there for criminals to steal and commit crimes with, and this is a good thing.
Plus, for the police to have a registry of legitimate weapons to help them trace the life cycle of guns used in crimes may also help them to bring these criminals to justice. The people who buy and own guns should have no problem providing records to the police, and reporting loss or theft of guns, in order to help this cause for the greater good.
So on the face of it, I do not believe that a gun registry is a bad thing in concept, but in practice it has not worked out as intended, and certainly won’t if the Conservatives cut it off at the knees.
The Conservatives plan to turn the whole thing over to the RCMP is a good one and should perhaps have been recognized by the government of the day as the most cost effective means of having a registry in the first place.
But perhaps asking our MP’s to think about being cost effective is asking too much.
