The Continuing Saga Of Canuckistani Gun Control Part 2

[Alyeska]

You know, I was going to respond to the rest of the post as well until I realized what a gem this is.

The registry was used to create justification to seize the weapons in the first place. Its a hell of a lot easier to say "we need to ban guns, here's the list that proves it!".

So, you admit that you would prefer that lawmakers work from ignorance if it means you get to keep your guns?

When the law makers fucking lie about the purpose of the registry.

You're a fucking idiot.

[Ryan Thunder]

Holy shit, you either seriously can't wrap your head around this, in which case you're even dumber than I thought, or you don't want to.

Registry: 1967
Ban: 1991

The 1991 government used the registry (which had been instituted by another administration 24 years earlier) to enforce the ban, which was illegal unless the gun owners were stupid and didn't have them write that in to the actual law. That, we can agree on.

So I guess the 1967 administration lied to you... because they knew the 1991 administration would institute an illegal ban. Have Americans developed time-viewing, or are you lumping all governments together for the sake of histrionics?

Furthermore, all the registry did was collect data and make enforcement easier. Saying it was the problem is like saying clocks make you late or radar makes you speed. Are you saying that it produced false information that the government acted on, or are you just butthurt that it made them aware of information that caused them to conclude that they needed a ban? What the fuck is it?

Anyway, in the case of ex post facto stuff there's still nothing wrong with that if people are given a grace period and fairly compensated except in rare cases. You can always buy a new gun.

[Aaron MkII]

There's this weird thing amongst lots of owners that there is a conspiracy to take our guns away, which there is but it's more along the lines of NGO's lobbying governments as opposed to a secret decades long program in the government itself, which can't even cover up politicians fucking outside their marriages.

It's kinda funny.

But the "you can always buy another gun"...well, you can't if it was an heirloom.

[Ryan Thunder]

But the "you can always buy another gun"...well, you can't if it was an heirloom.

I can admit that I don't really have an answer for that scenario.

There's probably some sort of non-destructive arrangement that can be worked out that'd let you keep it without being able to use it.

[Magis]

Unfortunately it was extremely expensive, 2 billion

What on Earth did they spend 2 billion dollars on? That's thousands of dollars per firearm. It can't possibly cost that much legitimately, so where did it all go?

Yeah, if only we had an Auditor General that looked into it in 2002 and, you know, wrote a report or something. Oh, wait, that's exactly what we have.

Expense breakdown:
$65.7 million - for program administration at the Canadian firearms Centre
$60.9 million - for communications work, including a national advertising campaign
$227.1 million - for the development and maintenance of an out-of-date computer system used to store the firearms data
$332.4 million - to deliver the program, including establishing the central processing centre
$113.5 million - the estimated cost of operating the program in 2002

I read a news story years ago that went into more detail, where it was stated that the enormous database creation costs were due to the government issuing thousands of separate change-of-requirements orders to the company building the computer systems. So basically the government couldn't decide in advance what they wanted this database to actually do, and instead of figuring that out first, they commissioned the creation of the database and then commissioned modifications to the database system, on average more than once per day for several years, until it became the monster it is now.

[Magis]

...since the ones you buy legally are all registered and stuff, so using them for a crime would just be stupid.

Why? How exactly do you think the gun registry could solve a gun crime - even if the gun used in the crime is registered? Do you know how the registry works, and what information it contains? It can only track the gun used in a crime if the gun itself is left at the scene and recovered by the police. It has no capability at all to do something like figure out what gun fired the bullets (which is what a lot of know-nothing members of the population thinks it can do.)

[Ryan Thunder]

...since the ones you buy legally are all registered and stuff, so using them for a crime would just be stupid.

Why? How exactly do you think the gun registry could solve a gun crime - even if the gun used in the crime is registered? Do you know how the registry works, and what information it contains? It can only track the gun used in a crime if the gun itself is left at the scene and recovered by the police. It has no capability at all to do something like figure out what gun fired the bullets (which is what a lot of know-nothing members of the population thinks it can do.)

You'd have to ask somebody who does that sort of thing.

Yeah, if only we had an Auditor General that looked into it in 2002 and, you know, wrote a report or something.

Yeah, man, if only.

Expense breakdown:
$65.7 million - for program administration at the Canadian firearms Centre
$60.9 million - for communications work, including a national advertising campaign
$227.1 million - for the development and maintenance of an out-of-date computer system used to store the firearms data
$332.4 million - to deliver the program, including establishing the central processing centre
$113.5 million - the estimated cost of operating the program in 2002

Interesting. So, something like $300 base cost plus $50 per gun annually, then. That's not nearly as bad as I thought it was. Still on the expensive side.

I read a news story years ago that went into more detail, where it was stated that the enormous database creation costs were due to the government issuing thousands of separate change-of-requirements orders to the company building the computer systems. So basically the government couldn't decide in advance what they wanted this database to actually do, and instead of figuring that out first, they commissioned the creation of the database and then commissioned modifications to the database system, on average more than once per day for several years, until it became the monster it is now.

Oh so it was one of those 'make it look stupidly expensive so we can score points with the haplophiles and the fiscal conservatives when we get rid of it later' exercises? That makes a lot more sense. I guess I assumed it was instituted in good faith.

[Magis]

Ryan, earlier in the thread you made this claim:

Anyway, the point of a registry isn't really so much to solve crimes committed with guns as to make sure that its harder to get guns that you could commit crimes with--since the ones you buy legally are all registered and stuff, so using them for a crime would just be stupid.

I'm wondering how you can justify that. Explain why it is stupid to commit a gun crime using a registered gun, compared to a gun that is not registered.

Oh so it was one of those 'make it look stupidly expensive so we can score points with the haplophiles and the fiscal conservatives when we get rid of it later' exercises? That makes a lot more sense. I guess I assumed it was instituted in good faith.

No. Like many policies under the Cretien government, it sounded good and even made some sense when given only superficial consideration, but in practice it led to more problems than it solved, and was executed without any measurable competency.

[Grumman]

...since the ones you buy legally are all registered and stuff, so using them for a crime would just be stupid.

Why? How exactly do you think the gun registry could solve a gun crime - even if the gun used in the crime is registered? Do you know how the registry works, and what information it contains? It can only track the gun used in a crime if the gun itself is left at the scene and recovered by the police. It has no capability at all to do something like figure out what gun fired the bullets (which is what a lot of know-nothing members of the population thinks it can do.)

(bolding mine)

While I hate to support Ryan on this subject, wouldn't "people are stupid enough to believe it" be a possible mechanism for how it works? It's still security theatre and I still don't like it, but if people think that using their own gun will let the CSI's forensics fairies track them down, that's going to affect their behaviour.

[Aaron MkII]

Effect whose behaviour? Owners are already among the most responsible members of society, your more likely to get struck by lightening then be killed by one.

[The Yosemite Bear]

question how would this effect a certain Canadian singer/songwriter & Biatholon athlete whose had problems with stalkers/break ins.

[Aaron MkII]

Who?

And it won't, nothing changes except for having to register non restricted firearms. God help her if she ever uses a gun to defend herself.

[The Yosemite Bear]

McLaughlin, formerly an Athlete in a sport that involves shooting things with a rifle while skiing.

[Aaron MkII]

Update:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/A ... story.html

The Conservative government vowed during the 2011 election to eliminate the long-gun registry.

On Wednesday evening, the bill to officially end the registry - Bill C-19 - had its final vote in the Senate, leaving only a signature from the governor-general needed to officially kill the registry.

By a vote of 50-27, senators approved Bill C-19, marking the last political hurdle needed to kill the registry.

A few Liberals rose to vote in favour of C-19, including Sen. Charlie Watt and Sen. Lillian Eva Dyck.

Each received applause from the Tory benches when they had their names called during the vote.

Sen. Anne Cools, who sits as an independent member of the Senate, also received applause when she voted and a few jabs from the Liberal benches, where she sits. "It's called democracy," she said during the vote.

There was no such applause for Tory Sen. Elaine McCoy, who voted against the bill.

The vote was quieter than the one that took place last month, when the C-19 passed its final vote in the House of Commons. There, the public gallery was packed with onlookers. On Wednesday, five people sat in the public gallery of the Senate to watch the vote.

Watching the vote on the floor of the Senate was Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner who had originally pushed to end the registry

"We are all counting the hours until the moment comes when law-abiding Canadians will no longer have to register their long guns," Hoeppner said earlier in the day in the Commons.

The federal law will end the requirement for lawful gun owners to register their long guns, and it relaxes rules around selling or transferring guns - that last point being a point of concern for Liberal senators when they reviewed the bill at the committee stage.

Gun licences for individuals will still be required, and the registry for restricted and prohibited firearms such as handguns will be maintained.

Gun control has been ferociously debated in Canada for decades, particularly since the École Polytechnique massacre of 1989, when a gunman shot and killed 14 women with a rifle. That prompted the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien to tighten gun controls and create Canada's first mandatory long-gun registry in 1995.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Aft ... z1rALzmY4v

So that's it, Royal Assent is a formality, it's dead. Can't say I'm sorry to see it go.

Best of luck to Quebec getting their own going, I'm sure it'll be paid for by the rest of us via transfer payments.