There’s an interesting passage on p. 23 of the RCMP’s 168-page evaluation report on the Canadian Firearms Program.
This is the report that will be debated by MPs in the coming weeks as we see a showdown in the House of Commons on whether a Tory private members’ bill to eliminate the country’s long-gun registry should be endorsed.
The report, among other things, tells us why the long-gun registry is so important and how it was supported by several high-court decisions. The report says the court decisions show how the long-gun registry fits into to the “social contract” citizens have with their state.
The passage says:
“Combined, the three court decisions support Canadian democratic values and the social contract whereby the state is obliged to protect citizens (through regulation and criminal law, in this case), and in return, citizens have a responsibility to the state.”
Obliged to protect citizens? Our state? Well, if that’s true, it’s an obligation the Canadian state sure doesn’t take seriously.
The truth is, the state is failing miserably in its obligation — through criminal law — to protect citizens. The state, through its laws and prosecutorial prerogative, regularly allows repeat, violent criminals to live among us, free to commit more crimes in a revolving door of justice.
The state regularly allows known, repeat violent sex offenders back on the street, knowing they are a “high-risk to re-offend.”
Criminals almost never serve their full sentences. Through ridiculously early parole and laws such as statutory release, citizens are put at risk by the state every week when these criminals are set free.
The state allows known, repeat dangerous offenders who have no interest in changing their ways back on the street over and over again. Is that the RCMP’s idea of the state fulfilling its obligation to protect citizens?
If there’s a social contract here, I’d say one of the parties to it is in serious breach.
Here’s the report:
How do police chief’s have the time to produce a 168 page “report” on a political issue – which has already been proven to effect nothing other than bureaccracy – yet they don’t issue damning reports on the wholly ineffective justice system that has them catching and releasing the same bunch of repeat, dangerous offenders? The public has just about had enough of this nonsense. Also strange how police increasingly don’t have the time to take reports on a myriad of crimes – as they cast them off as being “civil” in nature. Seems like it’s also the police who need to get their priorities in order and not just the political obstructionists who feel it’s their duty (or legacy) to oppose the will of the majority of people at every turn. It won’t be long now before we’re electing Senators (if at all), Judges and police chiefs. That would be a good start to regaining a functional society.
The other thing that is in this report is the cost of operating the Canadian Firearms Program. We have heard over the past several months that costs to operate the registry is now only about $4 million per year. On page 13 it clearly shows a cost of $86.5 million last year and a Full Time Employee staffing of 427 people directly under the CFP. Now I don’t know about a lot of folks out there but for 427 people to work under a staffing budget of $4 million means each and every one of them is working for less then $9500.00 per year. Boy I wish I could hire help that cheap. If a national firearms registry is so good and so useful why is it that the RCMP, the very organization that currently thinks it is so needed, destroyed yes I said destroyed the records of several thousand firearms that were purchased under the old Firearms Acquisition Certificate. If it was so good why destroy the very files you now want, seems suspicious to me.
Too bad they wouldn’t have used the money from the registry to build a prison or two, and put more cops on the street…..
So much wasted money on nothing.
Criminals dont register their guns…..law abiding citizens dont have to either (due to the amnesty)….what is the friggin point besides creating jobs for gov’t paper pushers.
Actually Daisydukers if you purchase a firearm from a store you still have to go through all the same steps as before. Only if you receive one from a private citizen would you not have to register it. Of course this will work only as long as our current government allows the amnesty to keep going. Any change in that decision will make criminals out of everyone who was involved in the transactions. The rules are so stupid that I will give you a perfect example of being in full compliance with the rules. Say I own several non-restricted firearms. I have a steel locker in the lunch room where I work. I can legally put trigger locks on all those firearms and lock them without ammunition in that locker and walk away. The law states that they be under a two lock secure system (padlock and trigger locks) and that only I have access to the keys. Would any self respecting firearms owner do this. Not unless they are a few bricks short, but if they did they would be in full compliance with the law.
For heaven’s sake Tom. I can list a dozen of ways the government fails to protect the population, or actively endangers the population, far more significantly than allowing dangerous repeat offenders to live among us. Seriously, where does being harmed by a dangerous repeat violent offender fall on the peril list? Above or below urban air pollution? Get some perspective and quit being so repetitive.
You’re totally right as far as the “state” failing to protect its citizens. The Canadian judiciary does very little when it comes to ensuring that the public is safe. If they were totally serious about it, they would make the punishment fit the crime without exception. Getting tough on crime could possibly make it easier for the police to do their job as well, since some criminals could be swayed by the prospect of a harsh sentence if they were to get caught. The concept of plea bargaining should be done away with, because the only person who benefits from it is the guilty party, and of course, their legal counsel.
It’s curious that the passage/concept/supposition menitoned came out of the RCMP report of the firearms registry, which was, as you may recall, the result of a misguided knee-jerk reaction to the slayings at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, something for which rural Canadians have been made to be accountable for. Note that even then the laws that were in effect at the time did little to dissuade Marc Lepine from doing what he did.
Any legal system that would allow a Paul Bernardo (who was clearly guilty of murder) to live is fundamentally flawed, and needs fixing.
@Ivan wrote: “The Canadian judiciary does very little when it comes to ensuring that the public is safe”
I hate to break this too you, but there is little the judiciary can do to ensure public safety. There is little if any relationship between public safety, crime rates and penalties. Do you really think Lepine or Barnardo would have thought twice if they were facing tougher penalties? Lepine offed himself.
The government has wasted more than it wasted on the gun registry every year for the last few decades prohibiting cannabis. You fearful folk need to get your priorities straight.
Matt. What? Are you kidding – minimizing the release of known, dangerous, repeat offenders ranks low on your list? Do you buy 6/49 tickets? You stand a 160 better chance of being seriously assaulted by a released repeater than you do of winning the other lttery. Do you get that? You would win the beating or death 160 times before you win the lottery. You want to increase your odds tremendously – take your wife and kids to the late show at the Imax tonight. Or maybe just stroll from the Forks down Broadway to the Bay – you know – like the old days. It’s sad day when one has to make a case for removing known threats from our public streets.
An Angus Reid poll out this week shows a vast majority of Canadians – 72 per cent – think the long-gun registry has done nothing to prevent crime. A survey of rank and file police officers is even more decisive, fully 92 per cent of them want it scrapped. Yet neither of these telling statistics will stop chiefs of police who are reportedly planning a taxpayer-funded lobbying and education campaign to defend the registry. They should stop.
A vote to kill Candice Hoeppner’s bill to scrap the long-gun registry is scheduled for September 22nd in the House of Commons. With numbers looking like the bill will survive, the long-gun registry appears doomed. As a result, the registry’s defenders are getting more and more desperate.
The registry has wasted some $2 billion and drains at least $106 million a year more from taxpayers from all three levels of government.
Police chief bureaucrats defend the registry because it gives them an excuse to purchase more computers, hire more staff and get larger budgets. However, the public get that the long-gun registry doesn’t make them safer; it’s simply adds more bureaucracy to a process that already requires gun owners to be licensed before obtaining a firearm.
Defenders frequently trot out the statistic that that the registry is queried 11,000 times a day by officers. However, this is because all queries of the Canadian Police Information Centre automatically check the registry. If you’ve been pulled over by police in traffic, it’s more than likely the gun registry has been queried. Of course, police are trained to assume guns are always present because criminals don’t register their firearms!
It’s worth noting that police chiefs have refused to commission a poll of their rank and file officers. No doubt they fear being proven to be out of step with the officers they purport to represent. An Edmonton officer conducted an online survey for Blue Line magazine and found 92 per cent of those officers surveyed favoured scrapping the registry. The survey revealed that police fear inaccurate data from the registry is affecting police safety in every province and territory.
Doubt about the usefulness of the registry is not limited to police officers. The Angus Reid poll reveals widespread Canadian belief that the long-gun registry has been a failure: 72 per cent think it has been ineffective and/or had no effect on preventing crime. The survey further revealed a plurality – 44 per cent – support scrapping it compared to 35 per cent that want it kept (21 per cent were undecided).
Importantly, despite a ramped up effort by defenders of the registry over the past several months, these numbers have budged little since a similar poll taken last November. Support for scrapping the registry is far deeper than the traditional urban/rural split in Canada.
Taxpayer-funded lobby and interest groups predictably beg for more and bigger government programs, regardless of their utility. However, it’s disappointing to see the chiefs of police join this bandwagon. Canadians should be mindful that the chiefs do not necessarily reflect the views of rank and file officers across the country. It’s likely any taxpayer-funded campaign of theirs to sell the public on benefits of the registry will prove no different than selling pyrite – fool’s gold. Fortunately, the registry’s shine is long gone.
ivan
marc lepime committed suicide.
he left a suicide note.
what penalty could have deterred someone who set out to commit suicide and take a whole bunch of people with him?
mm
Madeline
Marc Lepine used a semi-automatic rifle.
There was at the time, I recall, a restriction on the ownership of semi-automatic rifles — one had to pass a police investigation in order to be allowed to have one. For some reason, Lepine was able to get one, despite the fact that psychologically, he was fundamentally screwed. The system in effect at the time failed Canadians by not picking up on Lepine.
If anything, it’s just another example of how the police have screwed up — but it’s not a good enough reason for the authorities to make rural Canadians pay for what was a police mistake. Maybe they think if they make a big enough scene over the current gun registry boondoggle, everyone will forget how they allowed the Montreal Massacre to occur.
Ivan:
Sorry you are wrong. There has never been a restriction on ownership of any semi-auto rifles. The only thing that loser (I refuse to use his name and desire to remember all the victims) had to do is get the FAC which is a Firearms Aquisition Certificate not a licence. You only needed that if you wanted to purchase a firearm from a store, if you already owned firearms prior to that and did not want to buy anymore you needed nothing. For the FAC you had to present yourself at the local police station and they questioned you and checked up on your legal history. Was he a sicko at the time? We do not know, and the local police in Quebec who interviewed him either do not remember or were not talking. Look at the other loser who shot up Dawson College, almost the same thing. He went through all the hoops that were out there for non-restricted and restricted firearms and lied on his application. No physical look in the eye interveiw this time and no CFC follow up, which by the way is supposed to be done after every application according to the current Firearms Act. They say he used a military assault rifle during Dawson. I call BS. No military would take that toy into battle, they would all die. He used a semi-auto target rifle, nothing more nothing less and the only way he was stopped was by the fact someone else showed up with a gun. I could go on and on with trying to get the actual truth out there but there is not enough time or paper. Just remember these two things. When seconds count police are only minutes away and second you may never need a gun but when you do you will need it now.
ivan
no system of any kind is going to be fool proof against someone who is fundamentally screwed up and committed to getting a gun and killing himself and lots of other people.
it’s not a police mistake.
no police force in a democratic country can prevent all such events without destroying the democracy they’re supposed to protect.
mm
Then I would say that it’s pretty much a non-issue. No matter what restrictions or laws they put in, these laws are only as good as the police that enforce them — and if they are asleep at the switch, obviously the laws will have little or no effect.
However, note that situations like Lepine and Dawson School (as mentioned by George) happen seldomly in Canada, which I guess means that nearly all owners of legal guns in Canada are obeying the law, insofar as the use of rifles and shotguns are concerned. Whenever one hears of an incident involving gunfire, the majority of times its an illegal or an illegally used handgun that is to blame. Funny enough, criminals never register their guns, especially those who either smuggle them in or those that buy those smuggled guns.