May 17 2006
Firearms Registry Shenanigans…
Auditor General Sheila Fraser has released her report which includes a chapter on the Canadian Firearms Registry. The Canadian Firearms Program chapter is about what you’d expect, a dry government document illustrating systemic mismanagement and cost over-runs. The report pegs the cost of the Registry at $1 Billion to date. Including approximately $250 Million spent on developing the information system (Version I, and now Version II) used to track firearms and their owners.
The Conservative minority government has set it’s sights on the registry, as they promised during the election. The plan is to chop the long gun and shotgun sections out, leaving the handguns, restricted and prohibited weapons components under RCMP control.
In essence, a return to pre-CFC practices.
So, to those proponents of the federal firearms registry I ask this. How has this $1 Billion in tax dollars reduced crime. How has this $1 Billion saved lives, how has this $1 Billion done anything but line the pockets of greedy contractors?
Don’t give me intangibles or emotional arguments. Give me one solid reason the entire thing shouldn’t be scrapped before we throw good money after bad.
Nice to see my vote put to good use!!
Oh come on man, if they didn’t spend the money on the gun registry just think of the horrible new programs they would have had to come up with, you know they are going to spend the money anyway so lets be happy it was wasted in such a way that it caused us the least possible pain.
Not the point. It’s not like they suspended all other useless expenditures while dumping oodles of cash into the registry, they carried on with their usual assortment of patronage grants and questionable projects in addition to the hole that the registry became.
On the plus side it’s entirely possible that this fiasco has spent what credibility a central registry idea had. Only time will tell…
Of course a knife registry is inevitable too, but I for one welcome our new nanny overlords.
I know I’m late in arriving but I’ve seen a run on Ontario’s little premier getting his anti-gun speeches backfiring on him lately. The public at large, much against my expectations of them, seem to have caught on that the last couple months’ high-publicity crimes have been stabbings.
Our illustrious Chief Blair, on the last visit to CityTv unwittingly called the gun registry a flop and couldn’t dig himself out of the hole. I wish I was taping, I’d have quoted him. The essence of his statement was the registry would have helped if even one of the guns they picked up in the Jamestown Raid was registered. Not even one was.
You hear that Miller?
Mike you’re right I think. In fact I suppose the one good thing to come out of the registry is the boondoggle it became. In theory it’ll make it that much harder to go down this road in the future.
In essence the liberal mismanagment of their program has damaged the credibility they relied on. While I wouldn’t put money on this effort being abandoned, they’ve done more damage to their cause than any initiative I could have suggested.
And I noticed the hype about all the guns seized in the St. Jamestown raids being from the US, what happened to the 50% legitimately owned firearms that were in the hands of the gangs? Why was it assumed that the legitimate firearms were “so much easier” to acquire.
Muppets…
Arguably, that Billion Dollars did more harm than good. Those who use their guns to harm others are totally unaffected by the registry, and otherwise Law-abiding citizens are the ones who take it on the chin.
Lol, knife registry…Oh, I might just go crazy if my lovely sharp-objects became illegal.