Lorne Gunter has long been a worthy writer of common sense articles when it comes to crime, gun laws and effects of dubious regulation. This article is an excellent example, simple, to the point and loaded with checkable facts.
Gun registry proven worthless
Statistics Canada report comes to defence of Canada’s sport shooters, hunters and collectors
By Lorne Gunter ,QMI Agency
First posted: Saturday, December 08, 2012 07:00 PM CST
As soon as I saw the news releases this week from Statistics Canada announcing the annual publication of national murder figures, I readied my arguments about why the increase had nothing to do with the Harper government’s dismantling of the gun registry.
I knew the gun-banning groups would be all over the new numbers, which show a 7% increase from 2010 — a year in which Canada saw its lowest murder rate in four decades.
And I “knew” the anti-gunners would insist the rise was due to the Harper government’s dismantling of the gun registry, even though StatsCan’s latest numbers were from 2011 and the registry was not shut down until this year.
I knew the gun-controllers would jump on the increase in yet another attempt to reinstate the registry and make criminals of Canada’s law-abiding gun owners.
I needn’t have worried, though. StatsCan did my work for me. The national number-crunchers came (indirectly) to the defence of this country’s beleaguered sport shooters, hunters and gun collectors by stating very clearly that nearly all of the increase between 2010 and 2011 was due to knives. Guns weren’t to blame for the increased number of murders, nor were changes to federal gun laws.
And the last time I checked, knives weren’t included in the GUN registry.
Not only was the end of the registry not responsible for the uptick in homicides, StatsCan went further. Gun murders are at their lowest level in 50 years — half a century!
Indeed, StatsCan’s annual report was full of numbers that prove the uselessness of gun control.
For instance, some anti-gun activists will no doubt try to stretch the truth a little and claim the fact that gun crimes are so low is proof the registry worked to make the public safer.
Not so. As StatsCan points out, all murders — but especially firearms murders — have been on the decline since the mid-1970s, long before Ottawa began imposing draconian gun laws. The reason for the decline is demographics. There are simply fewer young men in the population now. And since men between the ages or 16 and 30 are the most likely to commit crime, if there are fewer of them on the street, there will be less crime.
Please read the rest here: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/12/07/gun-registry-proven-worthless
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
A moment of silence
This video sums up what we think of the LGR nicely.
Royal assent has been given to bill C-19, the bill that dismantles the Long Gun Registry. This is a great moment for democracy and for common sense. While much of the work was done by a small number of individuals both within and outside of the government, it was the combined will of millions of Canadians that gave them the power to be able to defeat the gun registry and it's entrenched and well funded supporters. The number of people who truly were for the gun registry and were willing to work at protecting it has always been a tiny number. But they held influential positions and had the ears of Ministers and decision makers to whisper in. This gave them power far beyond their numbers. But something changed that they could not cope with and that is the internet.
Hunters, shooter, collectors, firearm enthusiasts, soldiers and even police officers came together in internet forums and found that they were not alone. Soon we realized how many we were and with the help of the web we organized, we wrote letters, talked to politicians, shooters, police and anyone else we could. Only the Conservatives listened though and realized just how powerful an issue it was, (to be fair there was a small group of brave Liberals and NDPers who also listened) with shooters willing to volunteer and donate based on this issue, our influence as a group grew. There are more shooters than there are people in some Provinces and territories, that's a lot of votes. Although we had the support also of many non-shooters, people who were smart enough to know that the registry is nothing more than a pacifier for the public and a black hole sucking up money and resources. Combined we are a force to be reckoned with and let's be clear this is not a rural vs urban issue. There are many shooters that live in the cities and big towns and they are just as pissed as the farmer out in the country. So yes today is a good day for democracy, because it worked and we intend to keep pushing to change the law so people are not criminalized for paperwork crimes.
From the CFC webpage:
Changes to business requirements: elimination of the requirement to register non-restricted firearms Special Bulletin for Businesses No. 79
April 5, 2012
Snapshot
Implementation of Bill C-19, the Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act.
Implications
The Government of Canada has changed the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act to eliminate the requirement to register non-restricted firearms effective April 5, 2012. Until further notice, due to a Court Order issued by the Quebec Superior Court, residents of Quebec are still required to register non-restricted firearms with the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program.
Beginning on April 5, 2012, firearms businesses are no longer required to obtain a Registration Certificate for non-restricted firearms from the Canadian Firearms Program (CFP). This does not impact registration requirements for restricted or prohibited firearms.
Businesses that use Business Web Services, available from the CFP website, are advised that the registration and transfer of non-restricted firearms is no longer required or supported.
Individuals and businesses buying or otherwise acquiring firearms must still have a firearms licence, and businesses are still responsible for checking the buyer’s licence. Businesses may continue to call the CFP at the toll-free number to confirm the buyer’s licence prior to completing a sale.
Now I have a confession to make, I was a criminal until Midnight Apr 5th , because I had 2 unregistered long guns. I had bought them both from some old timers who were giving up shooting, they didn't want them registered and I agreed. Owning them was a risk, a risk that I shared with millions of other Canadians because most firearm owners had a number of rifles that they did not register, I would hazard a guess that at least 2 million owners did not register their firearms. I am saying this to show people just how big a failure the LGR was. Almost 3 billion spent and almost no compliance from otherwise law abiding people.
To celebrate this day I went to the range a free man no longer worried about being arrested. I took one of those never registered guns with me and I proceeded to shoot my gun registration papers. It was a great way to tell people like Allan Rock and Wendy Cukier to go pound sand. It was a beautiful day and I felt damm good!
My unregistered firearm
Finally a good use for a firearms registration certificate
As for this blog, while the LGR is gone, the registry for restricted and prohibited firearms remain and no doubt so shall truly epic failures of those registries. Just think the handguns have been registered since 1934 and they are increasingly being used by bad guys to carry out their crimes. I guess we are just slow learners eh? but that's a battle for tomorrow, today we enjoy the fruits of victory and how sweet it is.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Flawed registration and bad data
Submitted by the "Duke"
A few years back, I had an opportunity to help a friend out by lending him a non restricted rifle. This lending was 100% legitimate. He had a valid PAL, I provided him with a copy of the registration certificate, I wrote a note explaining that I was lending it to him, and I wrote my 24hr contact and PAL information on the back.
One day, he was pulled over while driving and, somehow, the police officer got into looking into his trunk (SUV). Even though my friend was in the vehicle, the rifle was unloaded, locked, in a locked case and completely out of sight.
Anyhow, not thinking he had anything to hide (officer asked the "do you have any alcohol in the vehicle" line), he allowed the officer to check in the back of his SUV.
Rifle was found, inspected, and confiscated as "stolen property" on the spot, despite the paperwork and contact info. No call, no explanation, just a confiscated rifle. Also curious is that they let my friend drive off, even though he had been in possession of an apparently stolen firearm.
Anyhow, I head to the local RCMP office come Monday. It turned out that it wasn't the lending equation that sparked the stolen firearm confiscation, but the registry had a name other than my own in its database. Funny thing was the registration certificate, that I also had a copy of, was the whole page that included my full name. As was the certificate that my friend had provided during the incident.
The officer did politely return the firearm to me, explaining that he was following the direction of his superiors and that I would be thankful if the situation were different.
Inconvenience aside, the firearm was returned in good order. Frustrating that the almighty database can make your own property "stolen" and no longer yours due to a data entry error.
A few years back, I had an opportunity to help a friend out by lending him a non restricted rifle. This lending was 100% legitimate. He had a valid PAL, I provided him with a copy of the registration certificate, I wrote a note explaining that I was lending it to him, and I wrote my 24hr contact and PAL information on the back.
One day, he was pulled over while driving and, somehow, the police officer got into looking into his trunk (SUV). Even though my friend was in the vehicle, the rifle was unloaded, locked, in a locked case and completely out of sight.
Anyhow, not thinking he had anything to hide (officer asked the "do you have any alcohol in the vehicle" line), he allowed the officer to check in the back of his SUV.
Rifle was found, inspected, and confiscated as "stolen property" on the spot, despite the paperwork and contact info. No call, no explanation, just a confiscated rifle. Also curious is that they let my friend drive off, even though he had been in possession of an apparently stolen firearm.
Anyhow, I head to the local RCMP office come Monday. It turned out that it wasn't the lending equation that sparked the stolen firearm confiscation, but the registry had a name other than my own in its database. Funny thing was the registration certificate, that I also had a copy of, was the whole page that included my full name. As was the certificate that my friend had provided during the incident.
The officer did politely return the firearm to me, explaining that he was following the direction of his superiors and that I would be thankful if the situation were different.
Inconvenience aside, the firearm was returned in good order. Frustrating that the almighty database can make your own property "stolen" and no longer yours due to a data entry error.
__________________
Friday, March 16, 2012
Disingenuous game with suicide stats
A good article on the effect of the LGR of suicides and rebuttal to the Wendy's of the world.
Lorne Gunter: Gun control advocates play disingenuous game with suicide stats
“In 1995, there were 1,125 firearms deaths in Canada, in 2008 it was 754, so that’s almost 400 fewer deaths per year,” Ms. Cukier told reporters. Most of the drop, she explained, was a result of fewer firearms accidents and, especially, suicides. “Experts say legislation has had a profound impact on suicides with firearms,” she contended.
---
But this only matters if you care how people commit suicide, not whether they kill themselves.
There are roughly the same number of suicides committed in Canada each year. Annually between 3,500 and 3,800 Canadians decide to end their own lives, and the number has been remarkably consistent for nearly a quarter of a century.
--
People intent on killing themselves may not be using guns to do so as often as they did before the registry opened in 1998, but they are still killing themselves. They are simply using other methods more now. For instance, during the time firearms suicides have declined, suicides by hanging have gone up nearly 75%. Instead of using guns, troubled Canadians have turned to ropes (and pills and poisons and gas, etc.)
In effect, she is saying it was worth spending $2 billion or $3 billion of taxpayers’ money (not to mention branding law-abiding gun owners as criminals) just so 400 or so disturbed Canadians each year could be persuaded to end their lives with a noose rather than a shotgun.
Read the full article at the National Post
“In 1995, there were 1,125 firearms deaths in Canada, in 2008 it was 754, so that’s almost 400 fewer deaths per year,” Ms. Cukier told reporters. Most of the drop, she explained, was a result of fewer firearms accidents and, especially, suicides. “Experts say legislation has had a profound impact on suicides with firearms,” she contended.
---
But this only matters if you care how people commit suicide, not whether they kill themselves.
There are roughly the same number of suicides committed in Canada each year. Annually between 3,500 and 3,800 Canadians decide to end their own lives, and the number has been remarkably consistent for nearly a quarter of a century.
--
People intent on killing themselves may not be using guns to do so as often as they did before the registry opened in 1998, but they are still killing themselves. They are simply using other methods more now. For instance, during the time firearms suicides have declined, suicides by hanging have gone up nearly 75%. Instead of using guns, troubled Canadians have turned to ropes (and pills and poisons and gas, etc.)
In effect, she is saying it was worth spending $2 billion or $3 billion of taxpayers’ money (not to mention branding law-abiding gun owners as criminals) just so 400 or so disturbed Canadians each year could be persuaded to end their lives with a noose rather than a shotgun.
Read the full article at the National Post
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Solomon Friedman talks to CKNW's Sean Leslie
A great interview about the scrapping of the registry. Useful for people who don't understand the issues.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
159-130 votes, the LGR is almost gone!!!
Today is a good day, the bill to end the Long gun registry has gone through with 159 to 130 votes which means the LGR is almost dead, now only the Senate to pass through and then have the bill declared law.
This is the tide turning, today we celebrate and enjoy the moment, made possible by the hard work of thousands of Canadians and the politicians who represent them. many of us thought this day would never come, but some kept working at it, till the moment was right. As soon as the bill is declared law, I plan on shooting my papers.
Frankly I think we should get rid of the complete registry, but I suspect for the moment it's a bridge to far. I think though after about 5 years of data to back up the fact that the LGR was useless, then we can work on the remaining registry.
Finally a post that is not about a failure of the gun registry.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
159 failures is a success in police eyes
Re: "Man arrested after 159 guns stolen from outdoor store," Feb. 7.
The article contains some puzzling contradictions. Most glaring is the quote attributed to Saanich Police Sgt. Dean Jantzen: "Access to the long-gun registry has been critical to advancing the speed of this investigation."
This comment follows the police observation that, "a remarkable thing is that all the guns were registered through the long-gun registry . a valuable tool in tracking and accounting for all the weapons."
Why didn't the registry track and identify the 159 guns when they were being registered to the wrong person? Aren't we fortunate that this individual had no violent intent.
One can only pale at the prospect of how many similar registry errors may have placed hundreds or thousands of weapons into the hands of hardened criminals.
Moreover, the article states that police were tipped off by an owner of Island Outfitters after a year-end audit. It looks to me like the long-gun registry had nothing to do with the tip-off. In addition, it is reported that the suspect is co-operating with police, which indicates he has turned over all of the registry's erroneously issued paperwork with the firearms in question.
No other information is available or required for an investigation like this.
The only contribution the long-gun registry made was to waste taxpayer money by repeating the same error 159 times.
Myrna Francis
Brentwood Bay
http://www.timescolonist.com/Long+registry+only+wasted+money/6125527/story.html
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/Long+registry+only+wasted+money/6125527/story.html#ixzz1m72olhPr
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Lorne Gunter: The gun-control lobby’s statistical black hole
The list of reasons for getting rid of the registry just gets longer and longer....
Lorne Gunter: The gun-control lobby’s statistical black hole
Last month, the RCMP and Statistics Canada were forced to admit that they don’t keep statistics relating to the number of violent gun crimes in Canada that are committed by licenced gun owners using registered guns.
“Please note,” Statistics Canada wrote in response to an access to information request filed by the National Firearms Association, “that the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) survey does not collect information on licensing of either guns or gun owners related to the incidents of violent crime reported by police.” Nor does StatsCan’s annual homicide survey “collect information on the registration status of the firearm used to commit a homicide.”
This raises the question: Why did it take so long for the government to begin ridding Canada of the horribly expensive, unjustifiably intrusive federal gun registry? If no one in Ottawa had any systematic way of tracking whether or not Canadians suspected of committing a violent gun crime were licensed to own a gun and had registered the gun being used, then they had no way of knowing whether registration and licensing were having a positive impact on crime.
There are around 340,000 violent crimes reported to police in Canada each year. Just over 2% of those (around 8,000) involve firearms. (There’s another reason to question the initial wisdom of the gun registry: Why was Ottawa expending so much time, effort and taxpayer money on such a tiny percentage of violent crimes, while doing comparatively little to prevent the 98% of murders, robberies, kidnappings, rapes and beatings not committed with a gun?)
Typically, gun crime is committed by street criminals using stolen or contraband weapons. The gun registry never had any effect on this class of thug. Some of the 8,000 violent gun crimes no doubt were committed by licensed owners using registered guns — people who might be tracked or even deterred using a registry system. But since no one in Ottawa ever had any idea how many people are in this latter group, they had no way of determining the usefulness of the registry.
A cynic might say that not knowing was the point all along. Backers of the registry knew it would produce very little impact, so they deliberately didn’t bother collecting data that would confirm the database’s uselessness.
I think the truth is less conspiratorial (and far more arrogant): Backers were so sure the registry would produce tangible benefits, they never thought they might need to show proof. After all, they were experts and they had thought it up, so how could it not work?
I would have thought it was a better strategy to collect as much data as possible from year one. That way backers could track the decline in gun crimes committed by licensed owners using guns they themselves had registered. But neither StatsCan nor the RCMP — nor, for that matter, local police forces — tallies gun crimes relative to who committed them and whether or not the gun used was registered with the federal government. It was purely on blind faith that supporters of the registry — police chiefs, victims’ rights groups, women’s shelter operators and grandstanding politicians — assumed that making Canadians register their guns would magically cut down on violent crime.
Gary Mauser, an emeritus professor at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., and one of the country’s leading firearms researchers, has done his best to piece together some sort of statistical analysis of firearms crime and licenced gun owners. Using Library of Parliament data and raw StatsCan crime numbers, Prof. Mauser believes about 3% of murders committed in Canada since the registry opened in 1998 have been committed by licenced gun owners using firearms, registered or not — this despite the fact that at least 8% of Canadians own firearms. Prof. Mauser calculates that this works out to a rate of 0.38 murders per 100,000 licensed gun owners versus a murder rate of 1.85 per 100,000 — nearly five times higher — for the population as a whole.
All of this shows what a horrendous waste of time and money the registry has been. The sooner it is dismantled, the better.
National Post
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/25/lorne-gunter-the-gun-control-lobbys-statistical-black-hole/
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Birth of the Canadian Gun Registry
Birth of the Canadian Gun Registry
A gang that couldn't shoot straight
by John Dixon
The Liberals' gun registry program was pointed at Kim Campbell, not crime. That's why it shot itself in the foot, says former justice adviser JOHN DIXON.
We now know that the government's gun-control policy is a fiscal and administrative debacle. Its costs rival those of core services like national defence. And it doesn't work. What is less well known is that the policy wasn't designed to control guns. It was designed to control Kim Campbell.
When Ms. Campbell was enjoying a brief season of success in her re-election bid in the summer campaign of 1993, Mr. Chretien was kept busy reassuring what he called the "Nervous Nellies" in his caucus that Ms. Campbell's star would soon fall. To bring her down, the Liberals planned to discredit her key accomplishment as minister of justice, an ambitious gun-control package.
Those measures -- enacted in the wake of the Montreal Massacre -- Included new requirements for the training and certification of target shooters and hunters.
We got new laws requiring: the safe storage of firearms and ammunition, which essentially brought every gun in the country under Lock and key; screening of applicants for firearms licences; courts to actively seek information about firearms in spousal assault cases; the prohibition of firearms that had no place in Canada's field-and-stream tradition of firearms use.
I was one of the department of justice officials involved in that Earlier gun-control program. When the House of Commons passed the legislation, Wendy Cukier and Heidi Rathgen of the Coalition for Gun Control, which had been part of the consultation process, supplied the champagne for a party at my Ottawa home.
So what were the Liberals to do, faced with a legislative accomplishment on this scale?
Simple: Pretend it hadn't happened, and promise to do something so dramatic that it would make Ms. Campbell look soft on gun control.
The obvious policy choice was a universal firearms registry.
The idea of requiring the registration of every firearm in the country wasn't new. Governments love lists. Getting lists and maintaining them is a visible sign that the government is at work. And lists are the indispensable first step to collecting taxes and licence fees. There is no constitutional right to bear arms in Canada, as is arguably the case in the United States.
So why not go for a universal gun registry? The short answer, arrived at by every study in the Department of Justice, was that universal registration would be ruinously expensive, and could actually yield a negative public security result (more on this in a moment). Besides, in 1992 Canada already had two systems of gun registration: the complete registry of all restricted firearms, such as handguns (restricted since the 1930s) and a separate registry of ordinary firearms.
This latter registry, which started in the early 1970s, was a feature of the firearms acquisition certificate (or FAC) required by a person purchasing any firearm. Every firearm purchased from a dealer had to be registered to the FAC holder by the vendor, and the record of the purchase passed on to the RCMP in Ottawa. So we were already building a cumulative registry of all the owners of guns in Canada purchased since 1970.
The FAC system was a very Canadian (i.e. sensible) approach to the registration of ordinary hunting and target firearms. If you were a good ol' boy from Camrose, Alta., and didn't want to get involved, you didn't have to - as long as you didn't buy more guns. Good ol' boys die off, so younger people in shooting sports would eventually all be enrolled in the system.
After the Montreal Massacre, the then-deputy minister of justice, John Tait, asked me to review the gun-control package under development. One thing I immediately wanted to know was how many Canadians owned Ruger Mini-14s (the gun used by the Montreal murderer). The Mini-14 came into production about the time the FAC system was introduced, so the FAC should have a good picture of the gun's distribution.
But when our team asked the RCMP for the information, we couldn't get it. Computers were down; the information hadn't been entered yet; there weren't enough staff to process the request; there was a full moon. After a week, I said I didn't want excuses, I wanted the records. Then a very senior person sat me down and told me the truth.
The RCMP had stopped accepting FAC records, and had actually destroyed those it already had. The FAC registry system didn't exist because the police thought it was useless and refused to waste their limited budgets maintaining it. They also moved to ensure that their political masters could not resurrect it.
Such spectacular bureaucratic vandalism persuaded my deputy and his minister to concentrate on developing compliance with affordable gun-control measures that could work. A universal gun registry could only appeal to people who didn't care about costs or results, and who didn't understand what riled up decent folks in Camrose.
Which is precisely why it appealed to those putting together the Liberal Red Book for the pivotal 1993 election. If the object of the policy exercise was to appear to be "tougher" on guns than Kim Campbell, they had to find a policy that would provoke legitimate gun-owners to outrage. Nothing would better convince the Liberals' urban constituency that Jean Chretien and Allan Rock were taking a tough line on guns than the spectacle of angry old men spouting fury on Parliament Hill.
The supreme irony of the gun registry battle is that the policy was selected because it would goad people who knew something about guns to public outrage. That is, it had a purely political purpose in the special context of a hard-fought election. The fact that it was bad policy was crucial to the specific political effect it was supposed to deliver.
And so we saw demonstrations by middle-aged firearm owners, family men whose first reflex was to respect the laws of the land. This group's political alienation is a far greater loss than the $200-million that have been wasted so far.
The creation of this new criminal class -- the ultimate triumph of negative political alchemy -- may be the worst, and most enduring product of the gun registry culture war.
John Dixon is a hunter, and president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. From 1991 to 1992, he was adviser to then-deputy minister of justice John Tait.
A gang that couldn't shoot straight
by John Dixon
The Liberals' gun registry program was pointed at Kim Campbell, not crime. That's why it shot itself in the foot, says former justice adviser JOHN DIXON.
We now know that the government's gun-control policy is a fiscal and administrative debacle. Its costs rival those of core services like national defence. And it doesn't work. What is less well known is that the policy wasn't designed to control guns. It was designed to control Kim Campbell.
When Ms. Campbell was enjoying a brief season of success in her re-election bid in the summer campaign of 1993, Mr. Chretien was kept busy reassuring what he called the "Nervous Nellies" in his caucus that Ms. Campbell's star would soon fall. To bring her down, the Liberals planned to discredit her key accomplishment as minister of justice, an ambitious gun-control package.
Those measures -- enacted in the wake of the Montreal Massacre -- Included new requirements for the training and certification of target shooters and hunters.
We got new laws requiring: the safe storage of firearms and ammunition, which essentially brought every gun in the country under Lock and key; screening of applicants for firearms licences; courts to actively seek information about firearms in spousal assault cases; the prohibition of firearms that had no place in Canada's field-and-stream tradition of firearms use.
I was one of the department of justice officials involved in that Earlier gun-control program. When the House of Commons passed the legislation, Wendy Cukier and Heidi Rathgen of the Coalition for Gun Control, which had been part of the consultation process, supplied the champagne for a party at my Ottawa home.
So what were the Liberals to do, faced with a legislative accomplishment on this scale?
Simple: Pretend it hadn't happened, and promise to do something so dramatic that it would make Ms. Campbell look soft on gun control.
The obvious policy choice was a universal firearms registry.
The idea of requiring the registration of every firearm in the country wasn't new. Governments love lists. Getting lists and maintaining them is a visible sign that the government is at work. And lists are the indispensable first step to collecting taxes and licence fees. There is no constitutional right to bear arms in Canada, as is arguably the case in the United States.
So why not go for a universal gun registry? The short answer, arrived at by every study in the Department of Justice, was that universal registration would be ruinously expensive, and could actually yield a negative public security result (more on this in a moment). Besides, in 1992 Canada already had two systems of gun registration: the complete registry of all restricted firearms, such as handguns (restricted since the 1930s) and a separate registry of ordinary firearms.
This latter registry, which started in the early 1970s, was a feature of the firearms acquisition certificate (or FAC) required by a person purchasing any firearm. Every firearm purchased from a dealer had to be registered to the FAC holder by the vendor, and the record of the purchase passed on to the RCMP in Ottawa. So we were already building a cumulative registry of all the owners of guns in Canada purchased since 1970.
The FAC system was a very Canadian (i.e. sensible) approach to the registration of ordinary hunting and target firearms. If you were a good ol' boy from Camrose, Alta., and didn't want to get involved, you didn't have to - as long as you didn't buy more guns. Good ol' boys die off, so younger people in shooting sports would eventually all be enrolled in the system.
After the Montreal Massacre, the then-deputy minister of justice, John Tait, asked me to review the gun-control package under development. One thing I immediately wanted to know was how many Canadians owned Ruger Mini-14s (the gun used by the Montreal murderer). The Mini-14 came into production about the time the FAC system was introduced, so the FAC should have a good picture of the gun's distribution.
But when our team asked the RCMP for the information, we couldn't get it. Computers were down; the information hadn't been entered yet; there weren't enough staff to process the request; there was a full moon. After a week, I said I didn't want excuses, I wanted the records. Then a very senior person sat me down and told me the truth.
The RCMP had stopped accepting FAC records, and had actually destroyed those it already had. The FAC registry system didn't exist because the police thought it was useless and refused to waste their limited budgets maintaining it. They also moved to ensure that their political masters could not resurrect it.
Such spectacular bureaucratic vandalism persuaded my deputy and his minister to concentrate on developing compliance with affordable gun-control measures that could work. A universal gun registry could only appeal to people who didn't care about costs or results, and who didn't understand what riled up decent folks in Camrose.
Which is precisely why it appealed to those putting together the Liberal Red Book for the pivotal 1993 election. If the object of the policy exercise was to appear to be "tougher" on guns than Kim Campbell, they had to find a policy that would provoke legitimate gun-owners to outrage. Nothing would better convince the Liberals' urban constituency that Jean Chretien and Allan Rock were taking a tough line on guns than the spectacle of angry old men spouting fury on Parliament Hill.
The supreme irony of the gun registry battle is that the policy was selected because it would goad people who knew something about guns to public outrage. That is, it had a purely political purpose in the special context of a hard-fought election. The fact that it was bad policy was crucial to the specific political effect it was supposed to deliver.
And so we saw demonstrations by middle-aged firearm owners, family men whose first reflex was to respect the laws of the land. This group's political alienation is a far greater loss than the $200-million that have been wasted so far.
The creation of this new criminal class -- the ultimate triumph of negative political alchemy -- may be the worst, and most enduring product of the gun registry culture war.
John Dixon is a hunter, and president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. From 1991 to 1992, he was adviser to then-deputy minister of justice John Tait.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Wrong serial numbers
From a gun forum:
Just bought a P38 and the serial number is not correct. They combined the real serial number and the number from the mismatched barrel assembly and left off the letter suffix. This is the third handgun I have bought that had a mistake on the registration.
Just bought a P38 and the serial number is not correct. They combined the real serial number and the number from the mismatched barrel assembly and left off the letter suffix. This is the third handgun I have bought that had a mistake on the registration.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Suffering from a "registry glitch"
I also suffer from a registry 'glitch'. I inherited my dads guns so we transferred every gun registered to him to me and I took the lot of guns. Turns out he had 1 more registered to him that is now in my name but the gun doesn't exist.
It is a non-existent make with no serial # which I eventually figured out was because one of the rifles was registered twice, the second time being based off of some marking on the buttstock.
So I called the registry to explain the error and have it corrected.... NOPE. The registry doesn't make mistakes I am told.
If I want that gun removed from my name in the registry I must call the police and report it stolen. They will remove it only once I submit the police report. I explained that it is a crime to fraudulently report a crime to which they told me that is the only way they will remove the non-existent gun from my name.
It is a non-existent make with no serial # which I eventually figured out was because one of the rifles was registered twice, the second time being based off of some marking on the buttstock.
So I called the registry to explain the error and have it corrected.... NOPE. The registry doesn't make mistakes I am told.
If I want that gun removed from my name in the registry I must call the police and report it stolen. They will remove it only once I submit the police report. I explained that it is a crime to fraudulently report a crime to which they told me that is the only way they will remove the non-existent gun from my name.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Registered twice
Thankfully the end is near:
A reply;
I had to register a rifle twice as when i sent in the ifo the forst time, i never got the registration certificate, and when i enquired was told they never got the form, but i had made copies of the forms before I sent them in, so i guess what i sent got lost on a desk some where. also another rifle I registered, I got in the mail a letter and a number, this number I was to stamp, etch on the rifle. when I enquired again about this number I was told that there was no serial number to the rifle, but i told them there was and that i had copies of the paper work that I had sent in. Now get this, I was told that one reson was that this type of rifle had been produced so many times that the serial numbers where repeating themselves, and thats what I had to put this number on the rifle, and LOL get this, i was also told that maybe the scanner did not pick up the information I had sent in. So I redid the paper work and got it registered with out having to put new numbers on the rifle.
Monday, October 24, 2011
The end is near!!
It's the beginning of the end for the Long Gun Registry. The bill has been tabled, we will have to see what other gems lurk within the wording. the question now is will the police respect the will of Parliament and not try to keep a secret registry. http://parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Pub=NoticeOrder&Mode=1&Language=E&Parl=41&Ses=1&File=4
| No. 2 | No 2 |
| October 21, 2011 — The Minister of Public Safety — Bill entitled “An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act”. | 21 octobre 2011 — Le ministre de la Sécurité publique — Projet de loi intitulé « Loi modifiant le Code criminel et la Loi sur les armes à feu ». |
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Focus on real solutions to violence
Thought this letter really hit the nail on the head, I have bolded the part that is relevant.
Focus on real solutions to violence
Re: "Gun registry keeps women safe," Oct. 8.http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3327948
I was very disappointed to read this letter.
Supporters of the gun registry can't seem to keep their story straight. First they told us that the registry was needed for public safety. When that was debunked, they told us it was necessary for police officer safety. Since that was proven false, now they are telling us that the registry is needed for the safety of abused women.
In 2006, according to Statistics Canada, a mere 0.75% of all violent crimes, including spousal violence, were committed using a registered firearm. Given that such a tiny fraction of violent crimes involve registered guns, are we really expected to that the gun registry is such a useful tool in cases of domestic violence?
Why should legal gun owners be held accountable when legal guns are almost never used to commit a crime? If anyone should be held accountable, it's gun registry supporters. Instead of working toward real solutions to a complex problem, they have raised one false flag after another.
Instead of educating and empowering young women and teaching them how to avoid abusive relationships, gun control advocates have painted them as helpless victims of men and guns. All they have done is drive a wedge between the sexes and alienate the good men who are willing to help.
It's time to stop focusing on guns and start working toward real solutions to violence in our society.
A little update taken from a thread on CGN. some useful info.
Focus on real solutions to violence
Re: "Gun registry keeps women safe," Oct. 8.http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3327948
I was very disappointed to read this letter.
Supporters of the gun registry can't seem to keep their story straight. First they told us that the registry was needed for public safety. When that was debunked, they told us it was necessary for police officer safety. Since that was proven false, now they are telling us that the registry is needed for the safety of abused women.
In 2006, according to Statistics Canada, a mere 0.75% of all violent crimes, including spousal violence, were committed using a registered firearm. Given that such a tiny fraction of violent crimes involve registered guns, are we really expected to that the gun registry is such a useful tool in cases of domestic violence?
Why should legal gun owners be held accountable when legal guns are almost never used to commit a crime? If anyone should be held accountable, it's gun registry supporters. Instead of working toward real solutions to a complex problem, they have raised one false flag after another.
Instead of educating and empowering young women and teaching them how to avoid abusive relationships, gun control advocates have painted them as helpless victims of men and guns. All they have done is drive a wedge between the sexes and alienate the good men who are willing to help.
It's time to stop focusing on guns and start working toward real solutions to violence in our society.
A little update taken from a thread on CGN. some useful info.
Bottom line, of 38,000 or so reported incidents of domestic violence in
Canada apparently some 40 or less involve a firearm. And ever fewer domestic
violence incidents involving a firearm result in injury or
death...Dorthy Jourdrie shooting her husband in Calgary several years
ago brought those domestic violence gun status up as well. It is unknown
which spouse was using the gun in those 40 or fewer incidents per
year.
http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/np991122.htm |
Au contraire, we know answers to both questions:
http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/collectio...XIE2008000.pdf
See Table 1.10, page 24 of this report.
The 38,573 violent domestic incidents are the ones that caused serious harm and were reported to the police, so all 40 of those involved serious injury. The table also breaks the incidents down according to sex of the victim. Of those 40 incidents, 34 victims were women and 6 men. It doesn't give the sex of the attacker, however. Note the above report is from 2008 and the data from 2006, it is the most recent I have seen in regards to breaking down spousal violence incidents.
This report from 2006: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collectio...XIE2006000.pdf
shows data from 1995-2004 in table 1.3, page 26. The total number of incidents was 211,791, with 358 involving firearms for a rate of 1.69 firearms incidents per 1000 total (0.169%).
One thing I find interesting is they break down the number of one time incidents and repeat incidents. 9 out of 358 firearms related incidents were considered "chronic". That is 2.5%. This completely belies the anti argument that guns are used all the time in domestic violence. Only 0.169% of all these incidents involved firearms and of that incredibly tiny number, only 2.5% were in the "chronic abuse" category. That means that firearms are used in chronic domestic abuse incidents only 0.004% of the time. That is 4 times out of 100,000 incidents. That doesn't really equate to "all the time" in my world.
Mark
http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/collectio...XIE2008000.pdf
See Table 1.10, page 24 of this report.
The 38,573 violent domestic incidents are the ones that caused serious harm and were reported to the police, so all 40 of those involved serious injury. The table also breaks the incidents down according to sex of the victim. Of those 40 incidents, 34 victims were women and 6 men. It doesn't give the sex of the attacker, however. Note the above report is from 2008 and the data from 2006, it is the most recent I have seen in regards to breaking down spousal violence incidents.
This report from 2006: http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collectio...XIE2006000.pdf
shows data from 1995-2004 in table 1.3, page 26. The total number of incidents was 211,791, with 358 involving firearms for a rate of 1.69 firearms incidents per 1000 total (0.169%).
One thing I find interesting is they break down the number of one time incidents and repeat incidents. 9 out of 358 firearms related incidents were considered "chronic". That is 2.5%. This completely belies the anti argument that guns are used all the time in domestic violence. Only 0.169% of all these incidents involved firearms and of that incredibly tiny number, only 2.5% were in the "chronic abuse" category. That means that firearms are used in chronic domestic abuse incidents only 0.004% of the time. That is 4 times out of 100,000 incidents. That doesn't really equate to "all the time" in my world.
Mark
Monday, October 3, 2011
480 BREACHES OF NATIONAL POLICE COMPUTER SYSTEM, RCMP REPORT
This related to the gun registry as the CPIC system looks at the registry to tell the viewer if the person has firearms registered to them. In other words the Registry is just a giant shopping list waiting for any organized criminal gang to pluck.
480 BREACHES OF NATIONAL POLICE COMPUTER SYSTEM, RCMP REPORT
“Police computer system is putting Canadian gun owners at risk.”
Since 1995, the RCMP reported that Canadian Police Computer Centre (CPIC) system has been breached a total of 480 times. In a recent response to an Access to Information Act request the RCMP confirmed 66 additional breaches of the police computer system (CPIC) over the last five years. “The privacy rights of all individuals are being violated by trusted police sources, but Canada’s law-abiding gun owners are at particular risk,” said National Firearms Association (NFA) President, Sheldon Clare.
This new information was obtained from the RCMP through an Access to Information Act (ATI) request submitted as a collaborative effort by two independent researchers, Gary A. Mauser, Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University and Dennis R. Young, retired Parliamentary Assistant to Garry Breitkreuz, MP. “It is unfortunate that RCMP does not regularly report these breaches of privacy to Parliament,” added Clare. The RCMP’s response to our ATI request is now available on the NFA website:
http://www.nfa.ca/sites/default/files/RCMP-ATI-CPIC-Breaches.pdf
Without any real evidence showing that law-abiding gun owners have ever been a threat to public safety, the former Liberal Government used closure to force an unfair law through Parliament (1995’s Bill C-68, the Firearms Act) making simple possession of a firearm a Criminal Code offence thereby requiring every gun owner in Canada to obtain a firearms license under threat of serious jail time. Two million gun owners complied and now all their private and personal information including their addresses, the number and types of guns they own are on the RCMP’s leaky computer system. “How many times have criminals used untrustworthy police sources to pinpoint the location and type of gun they want to steal?” asked the NFA President.
“The old Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) program was more effective at screening new firearm owners than the current licensing scheme that costs taxpayers at least eight times more each year to operate. As an added benefit the FAC system didn’t put private and personal information on vulnerable computers to be hacked, or violated by criminals and police personnel we trust to protect us,” concluded Mr. Clare.
For more information contact:
Blair Hagen, Executive VP Communications, 604-753-8682 Blair@nfa.ca
Sheldon Clare, President, 250-981-1841 Sheldon_Clare@shaw.ca
Canada’s NFA toll-free number - 1-877-818-0393
NFA Website: www.nfa.ca
480 BREACHES OF NATIONAL POLICE COMPUTER SYSTEM, RCMP REPORT
“Police computer system is putting Canadian gun owners at risk.”
Since 1995, the RCMP reported that Canadian Police Computer Centre (CPIC) system has been breached a total of 480 times. In a recent response to an Access to Information Act request the RCMP confirmed 66 additional breaches of the police computer system (CPIC) over the last five years. “The privacy rights of all individuals are being violated by trusted police sources, but Canada’s law-abiding gun owners are at particular risk,” said National Firearms Association (NFA) President, Sheldon Clare.
This new information was obtained from the RCMP through an Access to Information Act (ATI) request submitted as a collaborative effort by two independent researchers, Gary A. Mauser, Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University and Dennis R. Young, retired Parliamentary Assistant to Garry Breitkreuz, MP. “It is unfortunate that RCMP does not regularly report these breaches of privacy to Parliament,” added Clare. The RCMP’s response to our ATI request is now available on the NFA website:
http://www.nfa.ca/sites/default/files/RCMP-ATI-CPIC-Breaches.pdf
Without any real evidence showing that law-abiding gun owners have ever been a threat to public safety, the former Liberal Government used closure to force an unfair law through Parliament (1995’s Bill C-68, the Firearms Act) making simple possession of a firearm a Criminal Code offence thereby requiring every gun owner in Canada to obtain a firearms license under threat of serious jail time. Two million gun owners complied and now all their private and personal information including their addresses, the number and types of guns they own are on the RCMP’s leaky computer system. “How many times have criminals used untrustworthy police sources to pinpoint the location and type of gun they want to steal?” asked the NFA President.
“The old Firearms Acquisition Certificate (FAC) program was more effective at screening new firearm owners than the current licensing scheme that costs taxpayers at least eight times more each year to operate. As an added benefit the FAC system didn’t put private and personal information on vulnerable computers to be hacked, or violated by criminals and police personnel we trust to protect us,” concluded Mr. Clare.
For more information contact:
Blair Hagen, Executive VP Communications, 604-753-8682 Blair@nfa.ca
Sheldon Clare, President, 250-981-1841 Sheldon_Clare@shaw.ca
Canada’s NFA toll-free number - 1-877-818-0393
NFA Website: www.nfa.ca
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
yet another registry failure....
An exceptional good piece by R. G. Harvie at the "Searching for Liberty Blog" regarding the recent murder of Jonathon Bacon and the pointlessness of laws that we have such as the gun registry.
In the middle of the summer holiday in Tourist Mecca Kelowna, B.C., at the Delta Grand Hotel, armed men in hoods jump out of an S.U.V. and start spraying bullets out of assault weapons at what appears to be rival gang members, reportedly killing one of them.
I was in Kelowna last summer.
Stayed at the Delta Grand, in fact. Very, very busy place.
So - it was with some sadness and shock that I read this morning that less than a year after my last visit, there are armed gang members shooting assault weapons at other gang members in the middle of the resort.
Just a few thoughts today:
a) How did this happen in the face of the National Gun Registry?
Doesn't the registry prevent people from shooting guns at other people? That's what Michael Ignatieff said as he paraded the shooting victims of KimV** Gill before the press (ignoring the fact that KimV**'s weapon was actually registered when he started shooting up Dawson College).
I'm assuming that these gangsters, when they stepped out of their SUV to commit murder were aware that we have a national gun registry. I'm assuming they realized, as they squeezed the trigger to shoot another human being, that there are strict penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm.
Definitely read the rest here
In the middle of the summer holiday in Tourist Mecca Kelowna, B.C., at the Delta Grand Hotel, armed men in hoods jump out of an S.U.V. and start spraying bullets out of assault weapons at what appears to be rival gang members, reportedly killing one of them.
I was in Kelowna last summer.
Stayed at the Delta Grand, in fact. Very, very busy place.
So - it was with some sadness and shock that I read this morning that less than a year after my last visit, there are armed gang members shooting assault weapons at other gang members in the middle of the resort.
Just a few thoughts today:
a) How did this happen in the face of the National Gun Registry?
Doesn't the registry prevent people from shooting guns at other people? That's what Michael Ignatieff said as he paraded the shooting victims of KimV** Gill before the press (ignoring the fact that KimV**'s weapon was actually registered when he started shooting up Dawson College).
I'm assuming that these gangsters, when they stepped out of their SUV to commit murder were aware that we have a national gun registry. I'm assuming they realized, as they squeezed the trigger to shoot another human being, that there are strict penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm.
Definitely read the rest here
Monday, June 6, 2011
The CACP is not balanced (Open letter to Vic Toews)
Mr. Toews,
The Canadian Association Of Chiefs Of Police president, Chief William Blair, has sought an invitation from you to participate in the Firearms Advisory Committee, claiming that his organization “would provide you with timely and balanced advice on firearms issues from the leading law enforcement organization in Canada.”
I should remind you that the CACP has been anything but balanced. While the CACP was praising Tasers to offset the negative press generated by their use, Taser International was making huge donations to the CACP’s lavish annual conferences along with CGI Group, the software company responsible for the gun registry’s computerized system.
More to the point, many among these Chiefs have publicly expressed their desire to ban guns and they have also consistently distorted the truth on this issue. At the height of the registry debate, a bogus study was released at a 1997 Chiefs of Police conference in Fredericton overstating the number of long guns “involved” in crime by a factor of 9 - including gun collections found during investigations where charges were never laid (i.e. a domestic complaint against a gun collector) or near but not involved with a crime or suicide.
The CACP claimed that 52% of firearms “found at crime scenes” or “in more than half of the criminal incidents” were rifles and shotguns. They continued to repeat this in press releases even after the RCMP objected to this interpretation of RCMP data, which actually showed that a majority of the long guns “involved” in those incidents were unrelated gun collections recovered during investigations that did not involve guns at all.
As late as January of 2004, CACP vice-president, Ottawa Police Chief Vince Bevan claimed that “these guns are commonly used in crimes” and “place police officers and citizens in danger every day”. CACP members Ottawa police Chief Brian Ford and Winnipeg’s Chief David Cassels (both known supporters of Canada’s anti-gun lobby) have gone so far as to say that the firearms were “used” in those incidents.
At a time when Toronto bureaucrats and their Liberal pals in Ottawa were pushing for a ban on handguns, Blair himself was instrumental in making sport shooters and collectors a pariah in Toronto and we saw some shaky statistics come from his office making it appear as though a majority of handguns used by Toronto thugs were taken from legal owners. To further drive home this message, Blair cooked up a plan called “Project Safe City”.
Did this plan target known thugs and convicted criminals? No, they looked up everyone who had expired licenses and searched their homes - eventually finding one miscreant engaged in illegal activities.
The CACP is not a balanced organization that would provide good advice on firearms issues. They are little more than a government funded lobby group that is more focused on political agendas than they are on public safety.
Barry Glasgow
Woodlawn, Ontario
printed from http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/37264
The Canadian Association Of Chiefs Of Police president, Chief William Blair, has sought an invitation from you to participate in the Firearms Advisory Committee, claiming that his organization “would provide you with timely and balanced advice on firearms issues from the leading law enforcement organization in Canada.”
I should remind you that the CACP has been anything but balanced. While the CACP was praising Tasers to offset the negative press generated by their use, Taser International was making huge donations to the CACP’s lavish annual conferences along with CGI Group, the software company responsible for the gun registry’s computerized system.
More to the point, many among these Chiefs have publicly expressed their desire to ban guns and they have also consistently distorted the truth on this issue. At the height of the registry debate, a bogus study was released at a 1997 Chiefs of Police conference in Fredericton overstating the number of long guns “involved” in crime by a factor of 9 - including gun collections found during investigations where charges were never laid (i.e. a domestic complaint against a gun collector) or near but not involved with a crime or suicide.
The CACP claimed that 52% of firearms “found at crime scenes” or “in more than half of the criminal incidents” were rifles and shotguns. They continued to repeat this in press releases even after the RCMP objected to this interpretation of RCMP data, which actually showed that a majority of the long guns “involved” in those incidents were unrelated gun collections recovered during investigations that did not involve guns at all.
As late as January of 2004, CACP vice-president, Ottawa Police Chief Vince Bevan claimed that “these guns are commonly used in crimes” and “place police officers and citizens in danger every day”. CACP members Ottawa police Chief Brian Ford and Winnipeg’s Chief David Cassels (both known supporters of Canada’s anti-gun lobby) have gone so far as to say that the firearms were “used” in those incidents.
At a time when Toronto bureaucrats and their Liberal pals in Ottawa were pushing for a ban on handguns, Blair himself was instrumental in making sport shooters and collectors a pariah in Toronto and we saw some shaky statistics come from his office making it appear as though a majority of handguns used by Toronto thugs were taken from legal owners. To further drive home this message, Blair cooked up a plan called “Project Safe City”.
Did this plan target known thugs and convicted criminals? No, they looked up everyone who had expired licenses and searched their homes - eventually finding one miscreant engaged in illegal activities.
The CACP is not a balanced organization that would provide good advice on firearms issues. They are little more than a government funded lobby group that is more focused on political agendas than they are on public safety.
Barry Glasgow
Woodlawn, Ontario
printed from http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/37264
Friday, June 3, 2011
South African gun licensing system on "verge of collapse"..
Hmmmm....Didn't Wendy have something to do with helping to set up South Africa's registration system?.....ARTICLE
De Wet Potgieter
The backlog in gun licence renewals is so severe that the entire application processing system is on the verge of “collapsing”, an investigation by The New Age has revealed.
Sources in the South African Police’s Central Firearms Registry (CFR), speaking on condition of anonymity, said that officials were battling to clear the backlog but new applications were coming in everyday.
With 200000 applications already received, and only 1000 being processed each working day, exhausted officers at the Saps’ Criminal Record Centre (CRC) in Pretoria say they are barely making a dent on the ever-growing backlog.
Last year, Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa, said in a response to a question posed in Parliament that there had been 1365203 applications for the renewal of firearm licences in terms of the new Firearms Control Act (Firearms Act) since it came into effect. Of these applications, 499043 had been approved, 15766 denied and 2009 are on appeal. This meant that almost 850000 were still to be processed.
Besides dealing with applications sent to them for checking by the CFR, the centre is also responsible for checking criminal records for courts countrywide. The CFR also handles all applications for police clearances needed by people for a variety of purposes, including liquor licences and work permit applications.
“The police already owe us 96 hours overtime,” a senior civilian official at the centre said. “But there is no light in the tunnel. The problem lies with management at the CFR, they do not know what is going on.”
In Gauteng alone, the CRC needs to process at least 6000 renewal applications for firearm licences if they hope to make headway in clearing the backlog, another source at the centre said.
“The police simply do not have the capacity to cope,” said a member of the gun lobby group, which has been engaging with government on the licencing debacle.
“The mess at the CRC has been common knowledge for quite some time and even though they claim that the process has speeded up, this is clearly not happening. The people at CFR responsible for the evaluation of applications are not up to standard for this kind of job.”
And, as the backlog grows, more and more irate gun shop owners, security companies and individual firearm owners are turning to the courts, leaving government to defend damages claims running into millions of rand.
Pretoria attorney Jaco Kruger has sold off his general law practice to focus exclusively on lawsuits brought against police because of the shambles in the firearms industry.
“I am handling an average of 30 new such cases every month,” said Kruger, who has already handled more than 200 cases against the police.
Kruger said his court applications cost the government an average of R20000 each to defend – and he has already taken 45 such cases to the courts, with all the rulings being in favour of his clients.
The Black Gun Owners Association also resorted to the courts last year following claims by its chairman, Abios Khoele, that the Firearms Control Act placed black South Africans at a huge physical, educational and economical disadvantage, especially those most likely to suffer from violent crime, as well as the poor and the aged.
Between 2004, when the firearms licencing laws were changed, and 2010, 900 gun shops have closed down and 10000 people have lost jobs, Khoele told a press briefing last year.
His association represents 700000 people – of all races.
De Wet Potgieter
The backlog in gun licence renewals is so severe that the entire application processing system is on the verge of “collapsing”, an investigation by The New Age has revealed.
Sources in the South African Police’s Central Firearms Registry (CFR), speaking on condition of anonymity, said that officials were battling to clear the backlog but new applications were coming in everyday.
With 200000 applications already received, and only 1000 being processed each working day, exhausted officers at the Saps’ Criminal Record Centre (CRC) in Pretoria say they are barely making a dent on the ever-growing backlog.
Last year, Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa, said in a response to a question posed in Parliament that there had been 1365203 applications for the renewal of firearm licences in terms of the new Firearms Control Act (Firearms Act) since it came into effect. Of these applications, 499043 had been approved, 15766 denied and 2009 are on appeal. This meant that almost 850000 were still to be processed.
Besides dealing with applications sent to them for checking by the CFR, the centre is also responsible for checking criminal records for courts countrywide. The CFR also handles all applications for police clearances needed by people for a variety of purposes, including liquor licences and work permit applications.
“The police already owe us 96 hours overtime,” a senior civilian official at the centre said. “But there is no light in the tunnel. The problem lies with management at the CFR, they do not know what is going on.”
In Gauteng alone, the CRC needs to process at least 6000 renewal applications for firearm licences if they hope to make headway in clearing the backlog, another source at the centre said.
“The police simply do not have the capacity to cope,” said a member of the gun lobby group, which has been engaging with government on the licencing debacle.
“The mess at the CRC has been common knowledge for quite some time and even though they claim that the process has speeded up, this is clearly not happening. The people at CFR responsible for the evaluation of applications are not up to standard for this kind of job.”
And, as the backlog grows, more and more irate gun shop owners, security companies and individual firearm owners are turning to the courts, leaving government to defend damages claims running into millions of rand.
Pretoria attorney Jaco Kruger has sold off his general law practice to focus exclusively on lawsuits brought against police because of the shambles in the firearms industry.
“I am handling an average of 30 new such cases every month,” said Kruger, who has already handled more than 200 cases against the police.
Kruger said his court applications cost the government an average of R20000 each to defend – and he has already taken 45 such cases to the courts, with all the rulings being in favour of his clients.
The Black Gun Owners Association also resorted to the courts last year following claims by its chairman, Abios Khoele, that the Firearms Control Act placed black South Africans at a huge physical, educational and economical disadvantage, especially those most likely to suffer from violent crime, as well as the poor and the aged.
Between 2004, when the firearms licencing laws were changed, and 2010, 900 gun shops have closed down and 10000 people have lost jobs, Khoele told a press briefing last year.
His association represents 700000 people – of all races.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Mountie loses cash, drugs, has illegal gun
Mountie loses cash, drugs, has illegal gun
Docked 5 days pay for neglect of duty, discreditable conduct
By Gary Dimmock, Ottawa Citizen May 17, 2011
Const. Matt Wright's police work was anything but textbook the day he made an arrest in a street-level drugs and money bust.
The RCMP constable, a former military man, never fully documented the bag of pills and wad of cash he seized.
Then two months later, after working late at the Chilliwack, B.C. detachment, Wright, left with a box containing files, his notebooks, RCMP identification card, and the seized money and drugs.
He loaded the box into his personal vehicle and later that same night reported it had been stolen from his car. Everything was recovered, except the drugs and money. It is impossible to know what kind or the exact amount of drugs because they were never fully documented, nor was the cash. Wright says it was a bag of about 50 blue pills and a "thin wad" of cash, that contained at least one $20 note on the outside.
In an internal disciplinary ruling in Ottawa dated March 28, Wright, who admitted the allegations, was docked two days pay for neglect of duty.
"The lapse of judgment in the proper care, control and storage of an exhibit may be out of character; however, members must be vigilant in properly processing exhibits. The public and the courts expect nothing less than perfection," the disciplinary board ruled.
It wasn't the only problem the board had with Wright. In July 2007, months after he reported the missing drugs and money, the Mounties discovered he had purchased a rifle but didn't have a firearms certificate. Wright had purchased a 1973 Winchester RCMP Centennial rifle from a retired member in 2005. At the time, he asked a colleague to register it while he tried to get a firearms certificate.
Two years later, his supervisor learned Wright had a rifle in his possession that was not registered to him. And Wright still didn't have a firearms certificate.
His supervisor seized the gun and Wright was charged with disgraceful conduct under the RCMP Act. The constable was docked an additional three days pay for having a firearm without a licence. The disciplinary board stated: "We commit to uphold the law and by acquiring a firearm without the proper licensing, Constable Wright is breaking the very law he swore to enforce." Wright apologized to the disciplinary board and has shown remorse and regret for embarrassing the national police force. He also assured senior Mounties that he now processes crime exhibits "meticulously."
gdimmock@ottawacitizen.com
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Mountie+loses+cash+drugs+illegal/4794073/story.html#ixzz1Mc2bR6hd
__________________
What this article tells us is that away for the media spotlight, the police think the registry is a waste of time also.
Docked 5 days pay for neglect of duty, discreditable conduct
By Gary Dimmock, Ottawa Citizen May 17, 2011
Const. Matt Wright's police work was anything but textbook the day he made an arrest in a street-level drugs and money bust.
The RCMP constable, a former military man, never fully documented the bag of pills and wad of cash he seized.
Then two months later, after working late at the Chilliwack, B.C. detachment, Wright, left with a box containing files, his notebooks, RCMP identification card, and the seized money and drugs.
He loaded the box into his personal vehicle and later that same night reported it had been stolen from his car. Everything was recovered, except the drugs and money. It is impossible to know what kind or the exact amount of drugs because they were never fully documented, nor was the cash. Wright says it was a bag of about 50 blue pills and a "thin wad" of cash, that contained at least one $20 note on the outside.
In an internal disciplinary ruling in Ottawa dated March 28, Wright, who admitted the allegations, was docked two days pay for neglect of duty.
"The lapse of judgment in the proper care, control and storage of an exhibit may be out of character; however, members must be vigilant in properly processing exhibits. The public and the courts expect nothing less than perfection," the disciplinary board ruled.
It wasn't the only problem the board had with Wright. In July 2007, months after he reported the missing drugs and money, the Mounties discovered he had purchased a rifle but didn't have a firearms certificate. Wright had purchased a 1973 Winchester RCMP Centennial rifle from a retired member in 2005. At the time, he asked a colleague to register it while he tried to get a firearms certificate.
Two years later, his supervisor learned Wright had a rifle in his possession that was not registered to him. And Wright still didn't have a firearms certificate.
His supervisor seized the gun and Wright was charged with disgraceful conduct under the RCMP Act. The constable was docked an additional three days pay for having a firearm without a licence. The disciplinary board stated: "We commit to uphold the law and by acquiring a firearm without the proper licensing, Constable Wright is breaking the very law he swore to enforce." Wright apologized to the disciplinary board and has shown remorse and regret for embarrassing the national police force. He also assured senior Mounties that he now processes crime exhibits "meticulously."
gdimmock@ottawacitizen.com
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Mountie+loses+cash+drugs+illegal/4794073/story.html#ixzz1Mc2bR6hd
__________________
What this article tells us is that away for the media spotlight, the police think the registry is a waste of time also.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
CFC goofs on classification of re-registered firearm
I put a Krinker Plinker kit on my 10/22 which makes it a restricted firearm due to the total over all length when the stock is folded. So I brought it to a reputable verifier who gave me a copy of all the paperwork and details (confirming that it is indeed restricted now). But when I got my new registration certificate in the mail from the CFC, it still says non-restricted.
Glad the CFC is on the ball... nothing gets by them!
Glad the CFC is on the ball... nothing gets by them!
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