Is it Amateur Day in Ottawa?

Conservative Strategy regarding the Gun Registry

It's like every time the Conservatives make some gains - they feel compelled to shoot themselves in the foot to give otherwise lost Michael Ignatieff and his Liberals a leg up.

Ironically, most recently, they are shooting themselves in the foot over the long gun registry.

They have Canadians, by and large, onside - other than in Quebec (but who would presume sensible responses of any kind from la belle province?)

Those seeking to support the registry have almost nothing to recommend them.

While the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police support the registry - the rank and file, the men and women on the ground - overwhelmingly say it does no good and in fact puts them a risk - 90% of those surveyed, the response of the cop on the street being summed up by this letter to the Ottawa Citizen:

Re: Police chiefs unanimously back gun registry, Aug. 24.

As a long-time Ottawa police officer who recently retired, I just shake my head at the pro-gun registry stance taken by the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs.

The gun registry is cumbersome, expensive and does nothing to enhance the safety for the officers or the general public. It's a slap in the face to law-abiding citizens and a joke to criminal groups who just happen to not register their firearms.

The police chiefs have lost touch with the cop on the street and, sadly, appear to be looking after their own political interests. My father, who was the police chief in Ottawa some years ago and chair of the organization's law amendment committee, must be spinning in his grave.

Steve Flanagan, Ottawa

Canadian criminologists have also confirmed that the millions of dollars used in the gun registry would be better spent elsewhere to reduce crime - as there is no demonstrated evidence that would suggest the criminal use of firearms will be impacted by the registry system.

So - with things going our way, what do we do?

• we build more prisons that we don't need, throwing money away while running a massive deficit, based upon ideological motivations unsupported by any evidence that more prisons will make us safer, based upon Stockwell Day's comments that they are to address "unreported crime"- hence taking away any "high ground" we otherwise have in the argument against spending money on "crime reduction" without evidence to support that crime is reduced
• on the virtual eve of what appears to be a probable successful vote to scrap the registry,we fire the R.C.M.P. head of the registry;
• after receipt of a report on the registry, which is suggested to be positive, we appear to bury the report until after the vote, and when called on this, the response of Vic Toews is “Canadians don’t need another report to know that the long-gun registry is very efficient at harassing law-abiding farmers and outdoors enthusiasts, while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.”

Really Vic?  How 'bout letting me and other Canadians decide what we "need", pal? 

Because, while I'm no genius, I'm thinking if the report comes out later and is positive, it will give the hapless Michael Ignatieff yet another weapon to use to suggest the Conservatives are secretive and not to be trusted.

How about we get our shit together already and stop with the two card Monte?  Let the report out - and when it points out that gun-related violence has reduced since the registry was brought in (the constant refrain of proponents of the registry) we can point out very clearly that there is no evidence that the registry induced that reduction and that, clearly, violence was dropping before the registry as well.

We can meet the arguments head on and make the clear and obvious case that there is no logical connection, at all, to suggest that when someone is so mentally unbalanced as to decide to use a firearm to threaten or hurt someone else - they will suddenly have an attack of reason in deciding that while they were willing to risk a murder conviction - they wouldn't want to risk a conviction for possession of an unregistered firearm.



How about we practice some of that "transparency" we always talk about?