Say
what I will about the Harper Government, it’s fulfilling election promises. The
Wheat Board is getting axed, arts and culture funding will dry to a dribble,
the CBC could be on the outs, a brutal crime bill has been slapped down—why,
the only thing Stephen and his acolytes won’t address is abortion, and a lot of
folks voted for he and some of his formerReformers on that and that alone. He’s
doing every nasty thing he said he would. Can’t fault the guy for honesty, at
least. I just wonder if his ultra-right supporters will be happy with the next
4.5 years seeing as he’s blown his political wad in the first sitting. Of
course, one of Harper’s biggest annoyances has been the Long Gun Registry, and
now that he’s got his majority, it’s finally on the way out.
Only
a matter of time, I guess. What’s more, now that old Stevie can ram whatever he
wants through the house, well sir, he’s not stopping at eliminating the Registry—despite
the pleas of law enforcement officers—he’s going to delete all existing data on
those registered already—despite same. The more vocal gun owners are saying he
should relax restrictions on hand guns, submachine guns, bazookas, thermal
detonators (depending on the hue of the neck).
My
question: Was it really such a big deal, registering guns?
Let
me say that I see the criticism of the Long Gun Registry. Yes, it’s been
expensive registering what were mostly law-abiding citizens. Yes, that cash
could have been better spent on enforcement chasing down the baddies who don’t
register their guns anyway. But why the great outcry against it? Harper’s
wasted more money beating protestors and buying shiny jets than was wasted on
the Gun Registry.
What
was the hubbub? Was it all just a Charleton Heston “cold dead hands” sort of
thing? “The government ain’t got no rights in our bedrooms or near our gun racks.”
Was that all? I’ve never heard a better argument than that.
My
Dad has a few guns. He registered them. I helped. It was in 1996 or so. Didn’t
seem like a big deal, and we were ventilating our weight in gophers later that
day. Responsible gun owner followed the law, life went on. Far as I know, no satellite
was trained on our house after that.
My
feeling has always been that you can own a tiger, you can cage a tiger, and you
can keep diligent surveillance on the tiger. But it’s still a tiger. If every
failsafe you have in place somehow falls, it’s a loose tiger, and a loose tiger
is a scary thing—always.
You
could be safe, your guns could be safe (ish), your guns could only be used for
sport (I struggle with that concept), and they could safely be locked away.
They’re still guns, though. They still have only one purpose. I think where I’ve
always differed from law-abiding gun owners who decried the Registry is that I’ve
thought, even if these aren’t the guns killing people, there’s nothing wrong
with limiting guns. They’re for killing. Fewer of them, and more control of
them always felt like the right thing to do to me.
In
the US, gun crime is common. I’ve discussed this before. http://vikingpaul.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html
More
guns means the potential—potential—for
more violence. Nobody would be comfortable with a dozen caged tigers on their
block. I’d rather they were gone. Limiting the potential of violence is a
no-brainer.
You
need to register your car. It’s dangerous even if you’re the most responsible
driver in the world, and a car has more than one purpose. A gun does not.
Regardless,
I think the LGR was an expensive failure. I do think the basic intent (this is not praise for the Chretien Government)
was sound. However, we should limit crime through prevention and education, not
through brutalizing petty criminals and allowing the populace to arm itself
with all the ease of a Texas wedding. I’ve never understood the rabid opposition
to it, though, despite the cost, when law enforcement officials—the people who
are the experts on firearms usage—say it has helped them. 
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