Now I know where my hard earned tax dollars are going..it certainly isn't into health care,education, new schools,infrastructure or social programs... but I feel safer now. [:(!]

Gun registration is dangerous -- [The Gazette (Montreal) - Sun 27 May 2001]

PUBLICATION The Gazette (Montreal)
DATE Sun 27 May 2001
SECTION/CATEGORY Editorial / Op-ed
PAGE NUMBER A16


HEADLINE: Gun registration is dangerous

   David Austin's job at the Canadian Firearms Centre is to manipulate Canadians to believe that all is rosy in a world of chaos, mess and muddle (Letters, May 12, ``Firearms program is working'').

   CFC bureaucrats promised C-68 would cost $85 million. It has now surpassed $780 million,
with 328 pages of additional costs concealed from taxpayers through cabinet secrecy.

   Mr. Austin says 87 per cent of 2.3 million gun-owners complied with licensing. False. The 1998 Canadian Firearms Manual produced by the CFC specifically instructed all gun-owners not to reveal to strangers details about firearms, since this could invite theft. Unwittingly, the bureaucrats at Justice contradicted their own advice and conducted a wasteful $93,000 anonymous telephone survey asking Canadians to reveal personal information about their firearms. Is it any wonder why the results were deflated and bogus? Since there are actually 5 to 7 million gun-owners in Canada,gun-owner licensing is much closer to 40-per-cent compliance, a dismal flop.

   Mr. Austin says Canada is somehow safer because of a greater number of license refusals or revocations. That is comparable to universities setting artificially high entrance examinations and falsely claiming superior academic standards. Instead of going after criminals, the CFC is targeting the statistically safest citizens in society, gun-owners.

   Registration and licensing will not make Canada safer. Criminals will know which homes are undefended, which have firearms and what firearms to steal.

   If the government asked you to register all your gold, diamonds, jewelry and valuable paintings so that the police could return them in the event of theft, would you? Of course not! The government has no business in the bedrooms or the basements of this nation. Not only would this intrusive registry be another federal tax grab in disguise, it would be a heaven-sent shopping list for criminals.
Canadian homes and streets would become less safe. And so it is with a firearms registry.

   Al Dorans

   Nepean, Ont.