Funny, isn't it, how some stuff just never seems to get published in the ever-so-informative MSM? What with all the hullabaloo lately over C-19, you'd think this would be relavant or something...
Go figure.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Despite spending a whooping $2.7 billion on creating and running a long gun registry, Canadians still have not reaped any benefits. Even though the registry started registering long guns in 1998, it has yet to solve one single murder. Instead it has been an enormous waste of police officers' time, diverting their efforts from patrolling Canadian streets and doing traditional policing activities. As parliament debates whether to eliminate the long gun registry, safety should be the real concern.
Control advocates have long claimed that registration was a safety issue, and the reasoning was straightforward: If a gun had been left at a crime scene and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry would link the crime gun back to the criminal.
Nice logic, but reality does not work that way. Crime guns are very rarely left at the crime scene, and when they are left at the scene criminals are not stupid enough to register their guns. Even in the few cases where crime guns are left at the scene it is usually because criminals have either been seriously injured or killed, so these crimes will be solved even without registration.
