This according to Charlie Angus commenting on Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz’s statement that “[Police chiefs] won’t admit it, but it appears they don’t want Canadians to own guns. To that end, they need a database that will help them locate and seize those firearms as soon as a licence or registration expires.”
Well Charlie, you nailed that one – at least the “whack job” bit.
Now I have been opposed to the gun registry from day 1, not because I disagreed with the premise (You have to register your dog for Pete’s sake, why not a lethal weapon?) but because I disagreed with the criminal sanctions associated with failing to register. Make it a misdemeanour punished with a modest fine and remove the draconian search and seizure components and I‘d be fine with that.
But MPs like Breitkreuz and even Hoepner with their over-the-top rhetoric are clearly just pandering to the most hard-core of the tinfoil-hat wearing conspiricists out there. And sadly, that’s a pretty large segment of the Harper base.
4 comments:
Liberals have been promising to ban handguns for a decade now. Sheila Fraser already cited examples of the last government trying to hide the run-away costs. The RCMP even received a $115,000 donation from CGI, the very company that is botching up the registry computers and software.
I don't see any reason to trust their compromise.
Right on cue comes ridenrain
Like a moth to the flame
Oblivious to the pain
Of bearing a whackjob's name
The criminal penalties did indeed do a lot to inflame this issue.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but another one of the penalties for failing to register your rifle is that it would be confiscated and destroyed. (A particularly galling outcome for people with older guns that have been passed down through the family.) Little details like that do a lot to convince people that the ultimate goal of registry proponents is confiscation.
By contrast, as you said, failing to register your dog results in a fine. They don't confiscate your dog and destroy it because you skipped the paperwork.
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It probably also doesn't help that there is a small but vocal minority of Canadians who DO want all guns confiscated and they are (not surprisingly), vocal supporters of the registry.
Anonymous: LOL!
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