Good news from Canada - gun registry to go

[Preacherman]

From the Toronto Star (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...id=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1140006066135):

Tories load up to kill gun registry

Feb. 15, 2006. 03:59 PM

CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — The Conservative government has created a committee of two cabinet ministers and a backbencher to figure out how best to kill the long-gun registry as soon as possible.

Registry critic Garry Breitkreuz, who is working with Justice Minister Vic Toews and Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, said he has been given wide leeway to deal swiftly with the registry.

"I wouldn't be fighting for what I'm fighting for if I didn't think that would be the case," the Saskatchewan MP said in an interview.

"We couldn't have had two better appointments because they're giving me the opportunities to put in place whatever is needed to stop the flow of money right now."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised voters during the election campaign that the long-gun registry would be scrapped and money redirected to public safety.

When the Liberals added the registry to the federal gun control program in 1995, they said it would cost taxpayers no more than $2 million. But the most recent estimates put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bringing the total cost of the gun program to more than $1 billion.

The Conservatives have called the registry a waste of taxpayers money that targets duck hunters rather than criminals.

Breitkreuz would say little about how the government will kill the registry while maintaining background checks it promised on would-be gun owners.

"I still have to work through Stockwell Day and Vic Toews so I can't tip my hand as to what we're doing but we're working on that."

 

[Car Knocker]

Yeah, but I'm sure the existing registry of guns won't completely disappear; the law-abiding gun owners who complied with the law will still be on somebody's computer somewhere. And the moral to this story is...?

 

[Can'thavenuthingood]

"I still have to work through Stockwell Day and Vic Toews so I can't tip my hand as to what we're doing but we're working on that."

So what's to work on? You pick up all the data and walk over to the shredder with the media camera's rolling. Done deal film at eleven, no more registered longarms.

Wait a minute, he said longarms. Are they sorting through the registering and cherry picking what goes and what stays on file?

There's a cash cow buried in there somewhere. There is a fee, surcharge, tax of some sort going to erupt from this database. These are politicians, they spend money. They need money for redistribution programs.

Maybe its just me.

Vick

 

[Can'thavenuthingood]

They better hurry.
This is from the Toronto Sun.

Vick


http://torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Bonokoski_Mark/2006/02/17/1447338.html

February 17, 2006

Legitimate gun owners, the easiest targets of all, are within the sights of police. Will confiscation of their weapons be the next step?
By Mark Bonokoski

At a time when there is a need for a major investigation focusing on the burglaries of legitimate gun owners — some of these break-ins so well-cased that they have all the earmarks of an organized breach of the national gun registry — the OPP has put into motion a plan which focuses on the easiest targets of all.

They are easy targets because the OPP already know who they are, where they live, and what weapons they have.

But they are not criminals.

What they are, instead, are legitimate gun owners — those who obeyed the law and registered their weapons as demanded by gun registry legislation, despite the suspicions of many that it represented the first step in the slippery slope towards confiscation.

Registry link to cops

Those suspicions may not be so far-fetched.

Punch a name into a CPIC computer in any police jurisdiction in the country and, if that person is a legitimate firearm owner, all the information in the national firearm registry about that person is as close as the click of a mouse.

In a directive to all OPP detachment commanders, obtained by Tory MP Garry Breitkreuz, a major thorn in the gun registry’s side, provincial cops were recently provided with a virtual playbook on how to deal with legitimate gun owners who have not re-registered their weapons within the allotted time frame following their five-year licence’s expiry.

The police will know who these gun owners are because, at the same time the registry is contacting them, it is copying the person’s local OPP detachment.

“Upon receipt of this notice,” the directive says, “the firearms are (to be considered) UNREGISTERED” — the capitalized emphasis coming from the OPP itself.

And this, as the playbook on procedure outlines, will mean one of two things happening to the person who receives that notice: Either a phone call from an OPP officer, or a knock at the door and a cop standing on their doorstep.

It is a project which will not be without significant manpower, especially considering that RCMP data indicates there are well over a half-million registered gun owners in Ontario — all who will be getting that phone call or that knock on their door if they live within an OPP jurisdiction.

And here is how it will go down.

“As each new document arrives,” says the directive, “the registered owner can be added to a niche report as a ‘newly involved’ person.”

Then the commanding officer is instructed on what to do next.

“Assign a member (of your force) to this document and owner,” it reads. “This member should contact the owner to let them know that the police have this notice as well.

“During this contact, if the owner wants to surrender the firearms for destruction, then make an appointment for the member to go to the home and pick up the firearms. Have owner sign the quit claim. These firearms can then be destroyed per police orders and normal destruction policy.”

This is not to say, of course, that legitimate gun owners are without options since federal law allows 30 days to either begin the re-registration process — for a $60 fee for a long-gun licence, and an $80 fee for handguns — or to transfer ownership of the weapons to a “lawfully entitled person.”

But, according to the OPP directive already in motion, failure to comply within the time restraints imposed will result in serious repercussions — with gun owners who had followed the law by registering their weapons now in the position of being looked upon as criminals.

Enforcement action

“If the registry does not see that the (re-application) process has begun (within the allotted time), there will be further notice to the local police service notifying them of the possession of unregistered firearms,” reads the directive. “The onus is now placed on the local police to take some form of enforcement action.

“Please note. AT THIS POINT CRIMINAL POSSESSION HAS BEGUN. Some enforcement action will now have to be taken locally to obtain the firearms.”

And then the next steps are laid out.

“Knowing the person possesses the unregistered firearms without a firearms licence, obtain a search warrant under Sec. 487 (of the Criminal Code) to seize the firearms,” the directive orders. “Remember your contact with the owner previously? That confirmed the location and existence of the firearms. This meets the Regina vs Hurrell requirements for the affidavit you file as part of your warrant application.

“It is the discretion of the investigating officer whether a charge is laid, but the firearms will have to be dealt with according to the law.

“They are illegally possessed, unregistered firearms.”

Considering legally registered gun owners are now being this closely monitored — and stalked if they fail to re-register their weapons by the book — there is some irony in the fact that the police, regardless of jurisdiction, are not required to register their guns and the department of national defence is totally exempt from all registration requirements.

In 2002, 409 firearms were reported either lost or stolen from the Canadian military, including 17 sidearms — all Browning 9 mm pistols, a preferred street piece.

A year earlier, the RCMP itself had to confess to 16 handguns being stolen, and two handguns being lost.

All, of course, are unregistered and therefore untraceable.

 

[Lucky]

I believe there is a difference between unregistered and untraceable.

I think the Liberals plan to confiscate handguns was the best thing to ever happen, because now every gun owner knows that registration=confiscation, no if's, and's or but's. I didn't believe it before, but I do now!

 

[LAR-15]

Canada has had a registry of handguns since 1934

 

[Standing Wolf]

And the moral to this story is...?

Never—ever!—trust a leftist with more than you're willing to have stolen.