A former supporter of gun control;
These two reports were done with essentially the same criteria and methods, and they clearly show that while selected violent crime rates rose 100% in the UK, they fell 65 % in the U.S. During this time, Britain outlawed private ownership of firearms, while over 70 million additional civilian firearms were sold in the U.S. (4) At the very least, a reasonable person is forced to conclude that availability of firearms to the general public is not a contributing factor to any increase in crime.
These trends are confirmed by Britain’s own Home Office. (5) In the period of 1997 through 2001, homicide rose 19% in the UK while it fell 12% in the USA. (6) Violent crime incidents rose 26% in the UK while falling 12% in the USA. (7) Robbery rates rose 92% in the UK and fell 15% in the USA. (8)
Seems to me there are too many confounding variables here to draw any firm conclusions from comparisons like this.
Incidentally, I’m one of those “former supporters of gun control” myself. I was talked out of it by a bunch of Yukoners at the Gold Rush Inn in Whitehorse, one of whom eventually became my partner. But that’s another story. 🙂
http://www.theinfozone.net/SALW/Canada.html#gunregistry
Over the coming days, watch for Wendy Cukier head of the Coalition for Gun Control to slowly tan as she stands infront of television cameras.
Cukier, probably the head cheerleader for Canada’s billion dollar failure, the firearms registry, never tells you that she has received about $500,000 in grants and other payments from the former Liberal government.
Considering that in 1995, Alan Rock promised that the entire cost for the entire program would be about $2,000,000 it is amazing that Cukier would be paid about 25% of the total amount the program was supposed to cost.
Hey CBC, try to report that next time you have that cheerleader on your network.
TIZ
Regardless of whether you support gun control or not, you can’t make a lot of inference from the statistics provided.
Here’s a copy of a letter I recently had published in the London Free Press:
Subject: Gun registry opponent
Letter: On Saturday, a gentleman asked a question wondering in a letter to the editor how many people who have been directly affected by gun crime are opponents of the gun registry.
I am 100% against the gun registry fiasco. I read on a blog that the solution to suicide bombings is to create a suicide bomber registry. The logic in thinking that criminals will go through legal channels to obtain guns is just as ridiculous.
Plus, the amount of money spent (read: diverted) is astounding. The Martin government refused to hand over documents to the Auditor General to find out where the money actually went.
My brother, Boyd, was awakened in the middle of the night, his hands tied behind his back with his belt, and a gun barrel placed just below his left ear, with the bullet exiting his right temple. His murder left a 5 year old girl without her daddy. She and I still miss him very much.
I am 100% against the gun registry.
Dr Kyla Dillard
Alan Rock said: “I came to Ottawa last year, with the firm belief that the only people in Canada who should have firearms are police officers and the military.”
Idiot.
The gun registry was never about results (neither is any other liberal program.) It is about appearances and posturing.
These hugely expensive programs are not designed to fix problems but “send the right message” and make it LOOK like the government is “acting.”
It is a feel-good exercise for the emotional well-being of paranoid soccer moms.
Wendy Kook-ier is one of the multitude of “trough feeders” who will hopefully be looking for a real job soon.
She constantly touts that the police use the registry 5000 times a day as one of the reasons it should be kept. What she doesn’t say is that the police computers are tied to the registry and are automatically checked every time the police check for anything on their computer system.
Should be a FUN day!! Those Lieberals must just HATE this!
Im having trouble with this issue. Its time to make sure that those who make non-factual statements are corrected. (eg. Registy is consulted 5,000 times per day by police)
The head of the police association speaks of the number of officers killed by long guns inferring a need for the registry without noting that these deaths occured while the registry was in force.
I cannot think of one single redeeming benefit of the long gun registry except the additional jobs created
No, it is another channel to funnel $ to their friends in the guise of a feel-good exercise.
As Howard Nemerov notes in that very interesting article, “…gun control groups consistently lied or twisted minor factoids taken out of context in their articles.”
CTV’s website article “Feds will deregister long guns, shotguns” is a very good example of that. The URL is http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060515/gun_registry_060515/20060515?hub=TopStories
Distortion example:
“However, there are many supporters [of the registry] as well, including Chief Armand La Barge, who heads York Regional Police. He recently told The Globe and Mail the firearms databank is consulted by police about 5,000 times a day.”
Firstly, how does one police chief know this fact? Secondly, there is no additional information given on this purported consultation number. What does it do? What is achieved.
These are not rhetorical questions. The CTV writer attempted to buttress that pro-registry impression next with “‘Our last six or seven police officers were killed with long guns,'” he told CTV News. “‘That’s very sad.'”
In logic and debates, this is known as begging the question. There is no cause-and-effect proof of the Registry preventing ANY crime.
That is because CRIMINALS DO NOT REGISTER THEIR FIREARMS; ONLY LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS REGISTER THEIR FIREARMS.
By definition, law-abiding citizens don’t commit crimes with their registered weapons. Only criminals commit crimes with their non-registered weapons.
It’s vital to note that four of those police killings were in the one incident of the one habitual serious felon-committing man who killed four RCMP officers.
NONE of his weapons were registered. NONE of them would ever be registered under the Registry, because were he to attempt to do so, he well knew the police would seize them.
If that violent recidivist criminal been sentenced to stiff sentences for his previous serious violent felonies, he’d still be in prison today and those four RCMP officers would still be alive.
That case, and the criminal in it, is not a successful argument for private gun ownership prohibition. He had a record of some very serious felonies, for which he’d served minimal prison sentences. That case therefore is an excellent argument for ditching failed lefty revolving door law enforcement and imprisonment philosophy and cracking down on repeat violent offenders with long prison sentences.
The billion dollars and still counting of taxpayers’ money wasted on the Registry would have been far better invested in vigorous prosecution and lengthy imprisonment of recidivist violent felons.
The UK government is a) not protecting its citizens, and b) not allowing those citizens to protect themselves.
And they want the citizens to vote for them?
Re: ” Its time to make sure that those who make non-factual statements are corrected.”
Good luck with that one Lew (for example, is anyone else following the story of the Canadian snipers in Macleans. It is a sad story of how the truth seems to always become “relative” in Canada).
The Mop and Pail and the CBC are crying buckets over the “loss” of their precious gun registry.
Watch the BS fly.
I think this is not just about Canadian posturing. It is about a much more serious issue and that is power and the right of the individual to protect and feed and house himself and his family.
Socialists demand those “responsibilities” or rights and they have also proven time and again around the world that they will kill to get them.
Stand on guard Canada.
Similar statistics were also reported in Australia when they restricted gun ownership. The conclusion both in Australia and the UK was that the “bad guys” knew they were less likely to be harmed during a breakin , and crime rates increased.
“The UK government is a) not protecting its citizens, and b) not allowing those citizens to protect themselves.
And they want the citizens to vote for them?”
Many do. It’s easier than facing the truth.
As a US Citizen and living in a state with legal concealed carry, I am very thankful that our legislature allows us to be able to defend ourselves. Calling 911 is good for reporting what has already happened, it will never prevent something from happening… that is up to the individual.
Violent crime rising in the UK in spite of a gun ban? It makes sense to me. The guns are now disproportionately concentrated in the hands of violent criminals.
In the US, your basic criminal creep has to factor in that he might get shot by his law abiding victim when he enters a home or place of business to rape or rob. That has deterrence value. Having the means to defend yourself is a basic right that no government should deny its citizens.
Actually the Gun Registry is a sop to the Feminist Movement who insist that Men who own guns are a threat to them and therefore need to be constrained. Supported by other so called “Progressives” the lies and misrepresentation were allowed to sway spineless and ignorant politicians into acting on behalf of self serving special interest groups. The very worst of these was the National Association of Police Chiefs………..
………..The REAL problem is the lack of will to enforce existing laws and to address the failures of the so called “progressive” social and justice systems. Or taken one step further, the real problem is the false assumptions that liberal approaches to social problems and justice are effective when the are simply wrapped up in fantasy views of the world and not in reality.
Of course like most liberal fantasies , once the clowns put it into effect the price is born by the rest of us and in our special case because of the INCOMPETENCE of the Liberal government in managing the bureaucrats we got a $2Billion PLUS boondoggle to go along with a stupid and useless set of laws!
I shortened this post out of respect for your space and time..if anyones interested..I posted a more complete rant on this on my own blog.
OMMAG
the gun registry has nothing to do with preventing crime. It is, as has been noted, only a PR exercise. It’s all about votes.
Would the gun registry have made one whit of difference to the Montreal shootings – those shootings that directly led to the Liberals creating the registry? Absolutely not.
I am also fed up with this utterly false statistic, trotted out by all and sundry, that the ‘gun registry’ has proved how useful it is; it’s accessed 5,000 times a day!!!
Wow. Think about that.
That actually means that, in Canada, there are possibly 5,000 gun-related crimes PER DAY – and these are long-gun crimes. That’s 35,000 a week; that’s almost TWO MILLION a year! Is that true?
No. There are, statistically, only about 330,000 VIOLENT crimes in Canada. Per year. And only about 5% of these involve a firearm. That brings us down to 15,000 per year.
So- what’s with this 5,000 per day? It’s false. It’s totally false.
The long gun registry is hooked up to the central computer, and if your local police officer checks in the license plate of someone parking in a no-parking zone…the computer notches a ‘hit’ on the long gun registry.
So- what we have, in Canada, is 5,000 computer requests per day from the police. Most have nothing to do with violence. And I’d bet less than 5 (that’s five, not five percent) have to do with gun crimes. Most are about speeding, no seat-belt, no-parking, break-enter, domestic, etc, etc.
Furthermore, since 1934, all handguns in Canada are supposed to be registered. So? Has that stopped a single murder in Toronto or Vancouver? Of course not. In 1995, the dept of justice admitted they couldn’t identify a single instance where the gun registry had helped solve a crime (h/t to Bruce on AGWN blog). See the excellent cost-benefit analysis on Steve Jenke’s blog – Angry in the Great White North. Cost benefit is less and .2 of one percent.
Criminals do not register their guns. The registration of these guns – hand or long – does not have anything to do with crime. But, it has a lot to do with votes.
The long gun registry was a sop to the Women’s Movement; it was used, cynically, to buy their votes. AND, it provided MakeWork employment in the Maritimes. Both – bring in votes.
But- does it help crime? No.
Putting that money into hiring more police would help solve crime. But – immediate vote results have been the agenda, always, of the Liberals. They have never shown any interest in the welfare and benefit of Canada and Canadians. Just their own power.
No, you don’t need the above statistics to show gun control doesn’t work. Simple common sense and a rational mind is all that’s needed to tell you that gun control does not, can not, and never will work. Period. Anybody who says different is fooling themselves in their little fantasy world. Look around the world; the evidence is everywhere.
At the height of the gun controversy, five or so years ago, a gun was used in the commission of a crime in Vancouver. This gun was later found to be registered to the Victoria PD. In the ensuing invest. it was found that approx. (going on memory here) 20 handguns from the Vic. PD were somehow missing. This item never made the MSM, howcome? How can we as a populace feel safe in our own homes if the defenders of our safety cannot themselves comply with statutes that are 70 years old. Verification of the above story can be found in the Times Colonist, Nov-Dec 2002.
On a second note crime rates in the US started dropping in the mid ninties as the individual states started allowing the concealed carry permits to law abiding citizens.
What do all slaves have in common?
They don’t own guns!
My question is what is the amnesty about?
I sounds like just another way to register those elusive non-registered long guns that have avoided the registry … so … is it?
What up with that?
Missouri Bob is correct. An Armed Society is a polite SocietyThe guttless thugs are generaly to cowardly to confront the possibility of retaliation.
And what happens to all the records and data?
How are they to be used, or secured or disposed of?
It is a pretty safe bet, with so many Libs and Dippers and their friends in the civil services, the oversight of getting rid of the long gun registry could end up as detrimental to many individual citizens and very expensive too.- sigh
Dr.Dawg, I must disagree. Confounding variables do not affect the conclusion from the evidence presented. Here’s why:
A fundamental assumption of gun control is that the presence of guns increases violent crime, the reasons give vary. Reducing the total number of guns in private hands is supposed to reduce the ammount of crime committed with guns.
As we see from this broad observation of trends, that seems not to be the case.
One need not demonstrate that increasing the number of guns available reduces “gun crime” to conclude that removing guns from law abiding private hands does not reduce it, no matter what other factors are present. If gun control worked the criminals would be switching to other weapons. They aren’t.
One also need not demonstrate that the removal of guns from the law abiding is itself responsible for the gun crime increase. One need only observe the increase to conclude the gun control is not working, regardless of other factors.
I should add that this broad outline of events has been repeated right across the USA in every state that has passed a “shall issue” concealed carry permit system. As the number of legally armed citizens goes up, the number of violent crimes, particularly gun crimes, drops much faster.
Interestingly the number of shooting incidents does not increase but rather decreases, so the armed citizens are not shooting the criminals. In fact, the armed citizens do not appear to be -doing- much of anything. Yet the number of armed robberies, rapes, murders etc. drops by double digit percents every time.
My suspicion is that criminals are generally smart enough to weigh the risk of being shot against the gain from the crime, and if there’s ANY risk they don’t bother. However that’s a surmise, not a demonstrable fact given the evidence available.
At any rate gun control is strictly a shell game for the rubes, and the sooner we get rid of it the better off we shall be.
Percentages.
If a criminal reckons you don’t have a gun, they’ll be that much more likely to use one to get what they want.
Perhaps the most ancient advice comes from the Sumerians:
(Roughly translated) ‘For those farms without a guard dog, the fox becomes the overseer.’
Of course Liberals are far too progressive to consult history, human nature, or for that matter, logic.
As I recall there was a 19th century handgun appropriately named the Peacemaker. Wonder why?
It’s amazing the Liberals didn’t disarm the military. Though it seems they were on track to do so – “…soldiers with guns…in our cities…we’re not making this up.”
Idiots.
Nobody keeps track of crimes prevented by guns but maybe Westerners who use of the term peacemaker are onto something.-sarc-
Looks like the criminals are using the gun registry to identify where to get more guns.
“When we consider the recent burglary trend that has targeted gun owners, it only reinforces our predictions that a 2 billion-dollar programme designed to keep Canadians safe is doing the exact opposite,” concluded Reader.
– Barney Moorhouse
http://www.fishontario.com/homepage/news/article.jsp?content=20 060403_105428_4888&page=1
I am against long gun registration. I am in favour of a ban of concealed weapons carried on a person. Most of the shootings in the GTA are carried out with concealed weapons. We must be prepared to defend our homes. Police are now politically restrained as proven in Caledonia, and will usually not be of any help when requested. Times have changed in Canada since before the immigration flood which included that small percentage that carry concealed wepons and our government has not kept up to speed with the changing times. Liberal MP Paul Steckle was re-elected due to his stand against the liberal gun registration attempt in his rural riding. Majority rights were overlooked by the Liberals.
“When we consider the recent burglary trend that has targeted gun owners, it only reinforces our predictions that a 2 billion-dollar programme designed to keep Canadians safe is doing the exact opposite,” concluded Reader.
– Barney Moorhouse
http://www.fishontario.com/homepage/news/article.jsp?content=20 060403_105428_4888&page=1
The gun registry is accessed over 5000 times a day by law enfocement agencies in Canada. It was used over 3000 times in court last year as evidence.
No one’s right to secretly own a gun or long gunis worth more thana police officer’s life. Sorry
The police know I own a car and have a driver’s liscence why not a gun?
How much is a police officer’s life worth to a Tory?
John Lot’s 15 year study is the definitive work on the gun control issue. His conclusions are irefutably reasoned and the study is scientifically valid. It essentially states that armed and legally empowerd civilian populations have lower vioent crime rates. Only the foaming-mouth zealot fringe continues to rail against this reality.
The thing that bothers me is that the anti gun kleptocrats and their incestuous sycophant lobbyists have obscured their real agenda for decades. All the nebulous statistical wars they wage and all their manipulative emotional misdirections used to justify their position is all part of a larger core directive that dictates their agenda be obscured by these waves of diversionist rhetoric, cooked stats and false “need” arguments.
Gun control in the collective psyche of those who lobby for it is not , in fact, a long term saferty project for Canadian society. This would intail they believe that Canadians have a right to access and use arms responsibly…No, in their thinking so-called gun control is just another stage neccessary in the ultimate goal of complete civilian disarmament and legal disempowerment.
The gun control lobby is a defacto prohibitionist movement that is largely supported by all the suspect camps who find fault with civilians having too damn many freedoms for the super police state to adequately control/dictate every minute detail of an individual’s existance. These are the vocal advocates of the would-be policing aristocracy of the ant colony.
The relality is that Target shooters, Duck hunters and Antique arms collectors have posed no threat to society proportional to the political demonization, draconian anti-charter legislating and grotesque misallocation of tax dollars that Canada’s civilian gun phobic political cabal has purveyed.
Thusly my objection to the Canadian fiream owner and gun registry is not that it wasted criminally gross amounts of money, but that it unjustly targets the wrong segment of society and does so in a very calculated draconian manner…..it also expands police powers over private property and creates criminal liability for individuals who have committed no real crime.
My litmus test for finding who is a Canadian and who is some single party police state nut case with some “global bureaucracy” cult agenda is their attitude toward the continued access to firearms by civilians for non criminal purposes: sport shooting, hunting, historic value and self defence/survival.
Anyone who would criminalize ( which is what the current system does) a responsible civilian for the peaceful/legitimate use of a firearm for these purposes…or who fears an armed public, has ( conciously or unwittingly) subscribed to a philosophy/agenda that is diametrically opposed to the bedrock principles of British/American common law civil liberties….in short they’re statist nut jobs and would feel right at home with history’s other famous civilian gun control regimes: German national socialism, Russian Soviet statism and Chinese Maoist society.
Toronto’s crime rate
Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says that robberies are on the rise in Toronto, an average of 15 occur every day. Do you feel safe in Canada’s largest city? via cnews
More ststics:
15 x 365
Re; How much is a police officers life worth to a Tory?
Nice try s.b. but you are using a platitude that if ever invoked in real life (which IMHO is highly unlikely) the court would decide after the law suit and I am pretty sure the number would not be in the billions.
Are you a personal injury lawyer?-sarc
s.b.
Having spent 30 years in the RCMP, I can tell you how much a police officer’s life is worth to the Chretien/Martin governnments…not much.
Years of inadequate funding, years of softening our laws and coddling the few prisoners we actually have in our jails, even in the face of excessively high crime rates. Years of pretending to be concerned about crime, but doing less than nothing to address it. Today Canada has a higher crime rate than most developed countries, one of the lowest rates of incarceration per capita and an extremely low rate of police personnel per capita compared to most other countries.
The gun registry was an utter and complete waste of time & money. Before it was commenced we told Alan Rock’s people that it was a stupid idea, they didn’t listen. The impact is has had on policing – pretty much zero. Actually, less than zero, because all of that money was diverted away from cops on the street to a politically-motivated PR excercise.
Don’t even pretend to promote the BS about Tories not caring about the police lives. Enough police lives, and those of other Canadians, have been lost because of Liberal neglect. I’ve buried way too many of my friends to have any sentiment of respect for those in Chretien/MArtin camp.
And lose the statistics…they are bogus.
The Tories will do anything including putting police at risk to win a majority.
For people who think that crime is an issue why not listen not only to the police but the two thirds of Canadians who agree with the registry.
If you want “the right to bear arms” move to a country that has that right.
And how come so many gun totters are concerned that pot not be legal. If you believe in freedom how about that freedom too. You should be consistant.
“I am against long gun registration. I am in favour of a ban of concealed weapons carried on a person. ”
Agreed. Guns should be carried openly and proudly, by those who so desire. Like me.
But I think exceptions should be made, I mean a gun belt looks off with an evening dress, and I think purse guns aren’t necessarily a bad thing.
I recall a funny story about some recent immigrant to Vermont (from Mass.? I forget) calling the cops because some person was openly packing in a grocery store. The police showed up, found the caller, had them point out the carrier, and gently informed the caller that there was no violation of the law visible, and that they were wasting police time, and that they should introduce themselves to the town doctor.
s.b. & smalltownguy – If the registry saves police officers lives, why are the ones I’ve spoken to against it? Just last week a member of the RCMP volunteered information on how opposed he was to the registry, repeat – he volunteered it, I didn’t ask for his opinion on it.Bruce above, “having spent 30 years in the RCMP” gives you his opinion on it.
Yet you two seem to know what’s in the best interest of police officers, I bet your views on sentencing in general also differ considerably from what police officers suggest would be effective in curbing crime rates.
“If you want “the right to bear arms” move to a country that has that right.”
You are grossly missing the point that armed criminals, and there are plenty of them, stay put. The police are always at risk, it’s the nature of their job. Are you clueless enough to believe that criminals have actually participated in the gun registry?
If I lived in a neighborhood with a serial killer/rapist on the loose and have a gun for my protection I am doing the police and my neighbors a service if I blast the creep if he attacks me. What’s so hard for you to understand about that?
I’m not against increases in sentences for gun crime. But the question is, will a tougher sentence lead to less crime?
Most crime is irrational. When Joe criminal goes to the bank, to make his unlawful withdrawal, he doesn’t stop for a minute and say, well you know, I’ll put this back in the car. I can do 3 to 5, but 7 to 10, I don’t know about that.
With respect to saving police officers lives. The the regisrty is a tool, like their vests. Sometimes it will help, and unfortunately sometimes it won’t. But I feel as expressed by Chief Lafarge, from one of the Police associations, they are better off with it, and the vest too, than without it.
I am not saying I am any kind of expect. I’m sure there are officers who would like to see it go, just as there are officers who would like to see drugs legal.
I fully support the current Firearms Licencing System. The government should move
to grand father anyone with a Possession Only card to a Possession Aquisition Card. This would save lots of time and red tape. If you don’t have a Gun licence you better not get caught with a gun or ammunition. Large penalties need to occur. I do not support the Registry. It is enough that the Government knows that I am a Gun owner. It is none of their business how many guns I own or what type they may be. The only thing the registry was designed to do was aide future confiscation of my property. This is why the lefties are clinging to this so hard.
“Most crime is irrational.”
That’s ridiculous. Most crime is logical and organized in the mind of “Joe criminal”. He robs the bank because that’s where the money is. He’s figured out the risk versus the reward beforehand.
“The the regisrty is a tool, like their vests”
Well, at least the vest is made of bulletproof material. The registry is useless.
Canada’s homicide rate is one third that of the US per capita. The rate of violent crime in England/wales is 1% as opposed to 6% in the US
The US has permissive gun laws compared to Canada and the UK and it shows in the number of deaths and rate of violent crime.
Other significant facts that I ran across are that the average jail term for a gun crime in the US is 18 years as opposed to 12 years for a non-gun violent crime. Is the increased jail time for gun crime working? When you consider that 70% of murders are committed by guns it makes you wonder.
Another statistic that makes you wonder is the one surrounding the death penalty. The average murder rates in states WITH the death penalty is 5.1 per 100,000 people as opposed to Non-death penalty states at 2.9 per 100,000 people.
Are more severe penalties the answer? It doesn’t look like the answer is that simple.
Tougher sentences on gun crime? What about tougher sentences for knife crime? If a person is murdered with a knife, gun, or anything else, what’s the real difference? What about assaults in general?
Recent shootings & stabbings in Toronto included two stabbings on May 15 & two shootings on May 13. Neither of the shootings resulted in fatalities, the stabbings resulted in one fatality. In those instances knives proved more effective than guns.
It seems much of the emphasis on gun crime is politically based, a pandering to a public sentiment that firearms are somehow inherently evil.
smalltownguy:
I don’t agree with you that most crime is irrational. I’ve spoken to many criminals over the years, most are very much aware that their chances of actually going to jail for any significant period of time are remote. I vividly recall a major drug trafficker telling me, just before he was sentenced for importation, that he had several million dollars stashed and, for that amount of money, he “could do seven years standing on his head if he had to”.
In 1991 both Canada and the US experienced the absolute zenith in crime rates, especially the alarming rates of gun & gang crime. The US response was to bring in mandatory minimum sentences, eliminate parole at the federal level, and increase joint-forces police task forces to attack the problem. The very fact that serious criminals are doing longer stretches in prison has had a dramatic impact on repeat offenders; if the are in custody, they are not committing further crimes.
Canada’s response was to adopt the “Hug a Thug” principle. Loosely translated, that equates to something like “If you encounter a really bad person, just be nice to him and he’ll become nice too”. So according to that principle, we increased bail availablity, lightened sentences and dramatically reduced the rates of incarceration across the board.
The result: The US were successful in significantly reducing their rates of violent crime. They reduced their overall crime rate, on a per capita basis, to one that now is one-third LOWER than the overall crime rate in Canada.
Meanwhile, here in Canada, we are witnessing instances of car thieves in the Vancouver area being given suspended sentences after SIXTY previous convictions. Seeing four gang-bangers in Coquitlam beating a 17 year old with a baseball bat and pipes and each of them being sentenced to 18 months house arrest. Seeing case after case of street-racing punks killing pedestrians and being sentenced to house arrest.
Why are there 20,000 illegal grow-ops in the Vancouver area and only about three in Washington state? Because there are virtually NO consequences in Canada.
The sad thing is that the police have done their jobs, the courts have not. That’s why the Harper government is moving to curtial judicial discretion in sentencing…because the courts have for too long abused that discretion.
Never mind the percentage rise and fall in violent crime. Talk to me about the RATE, violent crime per capita or something like that.
Andy
S.b since you refer to car registration and licencing, as being no different than a firearm I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if the same hoops gun owners jump thru where applied nationally to automobile owners and drivers, just for being late with your renewal?
Here is the text from the first page of the licence renewal form.
To the CFC’s credit at least they sent it out four months early.
A DELAY IN RENEWING YOUR FIREARMS LICENCE
PRIOR TO THE EXPIRY OF YOUR EXISTING LICENCE WILL RESULT IN THE FOLLOWING:
• If you have a Possession Only licence, you, will not be able to renew it after the expiry date. You will then need to apply for a Possession and Acquisition licence and provide proof that you have met the firearm safety training requirements of the Firearms Act.
• If you have a Possession and Acquisition licence, you will not be able to submit the renewal form, but instead will have to submit a new application.
• Your registration certificates will be subject to revocation and you will be in unlawful possession of firearms as you no longer have a valid firearms licence.
• If you are currently the registered owner of prohibited firearms, and the Registrar revokes your registration certificate(s), you will permanently lose the privilege to keep those firearms.
The point is S.b. all legal gun owners have been treated as second class citizens, that are a “risk” to society,just for owning a tool.
Liberals and socialists true to their form sneak in the back door when it comes to burdening citizens with B.S. in order to fulfill their agenda – the extinction of private firearms ownership.
I can understand the “fear”(in place of respect) when it comes to firearms. What I can’t understand is the willingness of fellow Canadians to stand by while their neighbours get bullied by a bureaucracy, and somehow fail to see someday down the road they are next?
Cowardly if you ask me.
Thanks Bruce, for telling us what it is really like – which is a reality that has nothing to do with the nonsense spouted by the Liberals.
As you (and Penny) point out, crime is not a spontaneous action. It’s actually a particular economic mode – with risks, but, with high returns. You can readily become a millionaire, and in Canada in particular, the risks are almost minimal. Jail sentences are, as Bruce pointed out, an absolute joke. Repeat offenses are irrelevant to the sentence – and house arrest is simply allowing you to conduct your business via others.
sb and others – PLEASE stop quoting that completely false statistic of ‘The gun registry is consulted 5,000 times a day’. STOP!! First, think.
That would mean 35,000 gun related crimes a week. And almost 2 million a year.
False. Gun related crimes in Canada are only about 15,000. A year. So, it is false that the police are consulting the gun registry 5,000 times a day. What is happening is that police all across Canada are accessing the Aggregate, the Collected Data bases in Canada. If they stop someone for no seat-belt; if they deal with a fender-bender at an intersection; if they deal with a fire..etc. Each time they access the computer about a license, an address, a driver’s license – ALL,ALL,ALL the data bases are ‘hit’.
That’s your 5,000 a day across Canada. How many are actually referring to the gun registry? My bet is zero. ZERO.
Remember, there are only about 15,000 gun related crimes per year in Canada. And, most of them are handguns (which have been registered since 1934). Oh- and remember, no sane criminal is going to register his gun. And most criminals are very sane and shrewd.
Again, crime is an economic mode. It has risks, but it has great benefits. You can get very wealthy very quickly. You can start early – at age 12, 14, 16. You don’t have to endure years and years of academia, only to end up at age 26, with 30,000 in debt, with a job as a clerk in some boring office at a salary of 40,000…to pay off that debt.
The Hug-a-Thug social worker mentality ignores this reality about crime – that it is an economic mode, with risks and benefits. It’s a choice. The Hug-a-Thug thinks it’s a psychological aberration, due to being unloved as a child, or not being ‘esteemed’ or whatever other psychological nonsense they dream up. These nerds think that IF ONLY everyone were brought up with hugs and esteem..they’d all want to live in a white picket fence house and work from 9-5 ticking off numbers.
Crime isn’t a psychological aberration. It’s an economic mode of life. There will always be crime – including those crimes carried out by those in high office – such as Pettigrew having the taxpayer fund his pal’s trips to Paris; Radzwanski with his meals; Chretien with the taxpayer funding his pals..and so on. The society has to simply make the RISKS higher. That will reduce the number of people who CHOOSE crime for its high benefits.
The gun registry has nothing to do with crime. No registration of a gun will stop crime. Criminals don’t register their guns.
And please, please, stop the 5,000 hits meme.
Great post ET!
That’s the reality the Leftists don’t want to admit.
The gun registry is useless as criminals will never ever register their guns. It’s so simple that I must say to people who don’t get it, “Duh!” Wake up and smell reality. Down with the registry.
Cars are registered, so guns should be too? Please. What a pitiful analogy. Does your car being registered stop it from speeding or running red lights? Does it stop it from being stolen? Does it prevent you from driving drunk? Or using it for any illegal or criminal purpose at all?
Let’s turn the tables on you.
What if the gov’t suddenly said that V8 engines are now prohibited, and you have to either install a V6 or turn in the car for destruction? Or turbo charged models are classed as Restricted, and can only be driven at approved race tracks, not on public streets. Any car under 2,500 lbs is also restricted, as are vehicles over 5,000 lbs. Any cars with spoilers AND mag wheels are banned, but not if it came from the factory like that. Get the picture?