Cdn-Firearms Digest Thursday, September 23 2010 Volume 14 : Number 088 In this issue: Comments from SECU committee members prior Holland vote: MACLEANS: Why oppose registering guns but Hunters and fishermen spend $10 million a day in California RE: Don't forget gun wimps RE: [Newswire] CANADIAN POLICE ASSOCIATION READY TO WORK WITH ALL Gun Vote regarding: Don't forget gun wimps Are you listening ? We have long memories. regarding: Don't forget gun wimps Media responses RE: Regarding: NTI Supports the Abolition of Long Gun Registry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:58:30 -0400 From: Lee Jasper Subject: Comments from SECU committee members prior Holland vote: Various presenters in the H of C, Tuesday eve'g said: - -- The RCMP report, as I said, that just came out stated: 81% of trained police officers supported the statement, “In my experience, [the registry] query results have proven beneficial during major operations.” - -- [Hoeppner] What that means is that police database systems are set up to automatically check the registry any time they even pull someone over to check a licence plate. If someone is speeding, if a tail light is broken, if they have to pull someone over, across this country what happens when they put in the vehicle licence plate is that it automatically hits the firearms registry. Cheliak actually testified: > When we go back to the 2.3 million queries per year, we have to > remember that there were 66 million CPIC queries on persons in 2008 > as well. So when we say every CPIC query generates a CFRO query, > that's not the case. They believe the information in the licensing part of the database. If they see that someone has a possession and acquisition licence, or a possession-only licence, it gives them an indication if there possibly could be firearms. One of the important things to note is that if a person has a licence to possess a firearm and they have registered long guns, they do not have to store them at their house. They can legally store them somewhere else. The chief of the Calgary Police Department, Rick Hanson, said unequivocally that he did not support the long-gun registry. What did Hanson really say at the SECU committee? Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security Tuesday, May 4, 2010 > http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4497859&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=3#Int-3140301 Chief Rick Hanson (Chief of Police, Calgary Police Service): > We still want to encourage registration, but this can be done > through new regulatory and non-criminal penalties--for example, > penalty, ticket, and fine--administered through individual provinces. > To further encourage people to register, the process should also be > streamlined and simplified. > But the issue around registration can be more than adequately > addressed through provincial registries that recognize regional > differences and that decriminalize something that ought not to be. > We're not against a registry that is properly administered and that > decriminalizes the possession of sporting weapons. - -- There is certainly a valid debate, from a democracy standpoint, as to whether we should be dealing with this issue as a procedural motion or whether we should be dealing with the merits of the bill. I have to say that overall, in terms of my love of democracy, I would prefer to be dealing with the merits of the bill and to defeat it on its merits. It does not have many. The reality is that the government, through a private member, chose to go the private member's bill route. The way to deal with a private member's bill is to, in fact, defeat it tomorrow through this procedural motion. [Think about this]. The other point I want to make is that tomorrow, when this motion is passed and Bill C-391 is defeated as a result, we cannot let that be the end of it. This government, since it has been in power, has had the opportunity in a number of ways to improve the system. They have had recommendations from officers within the system to improve the system in a number of ways and to get rid of some of the irritants. The most dramatic one is the one we are proposing. The Liberals support us. We propose to decriminalize the first offence in this regard, to take away the stigma that has been attached to honest gun owners, legal gun owners. It would take that away from them. There are a number of other amendments and changes to the system, both at the regulation level and at the policy level, that would improve our firearms controls in this country. A great deal of the opposition from individual gun owners would be taken away if we proceeded. The government has intentionally avoided doing those things it could do without legislation so that the irritants would remain and it could then continue to try to justify getting rid of the long gun registry . We, as a party, have proposed a number of amendments. Decriminalization I have already mentioned. We have proposed annual audits by the Auditor General to make sure that the cost controls are still in place; ensuring that aboriginal rights are guaranteed, as protected under the charter and the Constitution; protecting the information within the registry from being released at all, ever, where individuals could be identified; toughening up the screening process, and on and on. The bill is going to be fairly lengthy, because there are reforms and fixes that need to be made to the system. We are going to need to continue to do that, and I am asking all parties, including the government side, to support that private member's bill when it comes forward. - -- In Toronto, there were 95 incidents involving firearms resulting in deaths, attempted murders and suicides. In the riding of Portage—Lisgar, there were 115 incidents involving firearms. This riding has the highest rate of incidents that involve firearms, including long guns, and endanger lives. The member for Portage—Lisgar does not seem to be aware of this fact. Why is she not listening to her own voters, the women who live in her riding and whose lives have been threatened by people armed with long guns? In the past four years, the number of on-line queries of the Canadian firearms registry by police officers from the Portage—Lisgar riding has doubled. These were not automatic queries. The Conservatives keep saying that when a police officer checks a vehicle's licence plate, the query is automatically linked to the firearms registry. The number of queries by Portage—Lisgar police doubled when deliberate queries of the registry were tallied. However, the member is not listening. She even denies the fact that the police in her riding of Portage—Lisgar is responsible for the majority—two thirds—of all registry queries from Manitoba for the purpose of obtaining court affidavits. The registry has made it possible, for police working in the Portage—Lisgar riding, to track 70% of the firearms that are confiscated for reasons of public safety. - -- [Methinks Hoeppner should change her hair colour; she's propagating an old stereotype. Guergis seems like a far brighter bulb]. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, September 23, 2010 12:38 pm From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: MACLEANS: Why oppose registering guns but MACLEANS - SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 Why oppose registering guns but support licencing their owners? by John Geddes on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 3:12pm - 55 Comments http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/22/why-oppose-registering-guns-but-support-licencing-their-owners/ I've just been listening to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews responding to opposition MPs in Question Period on the gun registry. Toews repeatedly stressed that even though Conservatives want to scrap the long-gun registry, they continue to support licencing gun owners and registering restricted weapons, such as handguns. Why is registering rifles and shotguns unacceptable, but those other aspects of the firearms regulatory system are just fine? Toews objects to the long-gun registry on grounds that "criminals don't register their guns." But the bad guys don't apply for licences or register handguns either. So why the inconsistent approach? [NOTE: AsstMod-RAM: Another Mainstream Media picks up on the true question as I thought before!] - ---------------------------- March 2002 Firearm Licence and Refusal Rates under the old FAC program = 0.76%. March 2003 Firearm Licence and Refusal Rates under new and improved firearm licencing system = 0.27%. http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/breitkreuzgpress/guns86.htm - ----------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, September 23, 2010 11:34 am From: "Dennis & Hazel Young" Subject: Hunters and fishermen spend $10 million a day in California SIGN ON SAN DIEGO NEWS - SEPTEMBER 23, 2010 Hunters and fishermen spend $10 million a day in California By Ed Zieralski http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/23/hunters-and-fishermen-spend-10-million-day-califor/ With Saturday being the 38th annual National Hunting and Fishing Day, what better time to toss out some incredible dollar figures when it comes to the value of those two time-honored traditions. In California alone, the 1.7 million hunters and anglers (about 1.5 million anglers, 200,000 hunters) spend a cumulative $9.8 million a day on hunting and fishing activities, according to the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation and the National Assembly of Sportsmen's Caucuses. That isn't a misprint. It's nearly $10 million a day spent by hunters and fishermen in a state where both groups face daily challenges from anti- groups and rabid environmentalists. Each year, hunters and recreational fishermen spend more than $3.6 billion in California. The taxes from those expenditures are used by the federal and state governments to pay some fish and game personnel salaries, fund projects and do a host of things to improve fish and wildlife in a state that continues to expand in population and development. In other words, in a state where habitat projects and the critters that use them need all the help they can get, hunters and fishermen let their actions do their talking. The number of fishermen and hunters, especially hunters, may be dropping, but the amount of money those of us involved in these two pastimes spend each day and each year certainly isn't chump change. If you hunt and fish in California, remember this, you're a very important part of the state's economy. What other group spends that kind of money each day? Golfers? Don't think so. Tennis players? Forget it. Runners, joggers and hikers? Forget about it. [READ MORE] http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/23/hunters-and-fishermen-spend-10-million-day-califor/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:19:07 -0700 From: "Jim Pook" Subject: RE: Don't forget gun wimps Bruce Mills: Thanks for the comment! Jim Pook Jim's Fishing Charters Box 326 Tahsis, BC V0P 1X0 www.JimsFishing.com jim@jimsfishing.com - -----Original Message----- Subject: Re: Don't forget gun wimps - --- On Thu, 9/23/10, Jim Pook wrote: > http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/editorial/2010/09/22/15444276.html > > Don't forget gun wimps > Jim Pook > Vancouver Island-North Wooo hooo! Way to go, Jim! Kick ass and take names! Yours in TYRANNY! Bruce ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:21:05 -0700 From: "Jim Pook" Subject: RE: [Newswire] CANADIAN POLICE ASSOCIATION READY TO WORK WITH ALL The CANADIAN POLICE ASSOCIATION can kiss my ass! Jim Pook Vancouver Island-North - -----Original Message----- From: owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca Subject: [Newswire] CANADIAN POLICE ASSOCIATION READY TO WORK WITH ALL http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/September2010/22/c4387.html CANADIAN POLICE ASSOCIATION READY TO WORK WITH ALL STAKEHOLDERS TO ENSURE FIREARMS REGISTRY REMAINS EFFECTIVE For further information: Michael Gendron, Government and Media Relations Officer, Office: 613-231-4168 ext. 229, Cellular: 613-299-6516, mgendron@cpa-acp.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:18:09 GMT From: "rbaker.1@netzero.com" Subject: Gun Vote We must all send E-Mail to Jack Layton, about his fearful switch against us and indicate that he has no Back Bone. Seems like he does not need us, But then he would not get our votes in the very near future. Rae Baker - ----------------- Jack Layton Current Member of The House of Commons - Toronto--Danforth, Ontario Date of Birth (yyyy.mm.dd): 1950.07.18 Place of Birth: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Occupation: Professor Married to Olivia Chow; they have two children Political Affiliation: New Democratic Party (1993.10.25 - ) Party Leader: New Democratic Party (2003.01.25 - ) Parliamentary Address 634-C Centre Block, House of Commons Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 Tel: (613) 947-0867 Fax: (613) 947-0868 E-Mail: Layton.J@parl.gc.ca ^ Constituency Address 221 Broadview Avenue, Suite 100 Toronto, Ontario M4M 2G3 Telephone: 416-405-8914 Fax: 416-405-8918 E-Mail: info@jacklayton.ca Selected Links: MP profile http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/ProfileMP.aspx?Key=78385&Language=E Party Website http://www.ndp.ca/jack Personal Website http://www.ndp.ca/jacklayton Reference: PARLINFO Parliamentarian File Contact Information; LAYTON, The Hon. Jack, P.C., B.A., M.A., Ph.D. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/Files/Parliamentarian.aspx?Item=878c4a88-aa8e-4e9a-961f-3829672d4dc0&Language=E&MenuID=Lists.Members.aspx&MenuQuery=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.parl.gc.ca%2Fparlinfo%2Flists%2FMembers.aspx%3FParliament%3D8714654b-cdbf-48a2-b1ad-57a3c8ece839%26Current%3DTrue ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:38:51 -0600 From: Joe Gingrich Subject: regarding: Don't forget gun wimps Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:37:13 -0700 From: "Jim Pook" Subject: Don't forget gun wimps http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/editorial/2010/09/22/15444276.html Don't forget gun wimps Last Updated: September 22, 2010 8:26pm Then the guns will definitely be out -- just not the kind that require registration. Jim Pook Vancouver Island-North - -------------------------------- If the guns are out, Harper and his Cons will be sure grab them. Yours in Tyranny, Joe Gingrich White Fox ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:14:52 -0700 From: Len Miller Subject: Are you listening ? We have long memories. Cc: Keith Thompson , Vic Toews GILBERT YARD, RETIRED RCMP SUPERINTENDENT: I am appalled at just how much has been spent to date on the firearms registration process. But perhaps even more disturbing is the misplaced focus on legal firearms. Like many reasonable Canadians, I support programs that address the structural and social situations that give rise to crime. Our first objective should be to promote law-abiding, non-destructive behaviour in as many members of society as possible. There comes a point, however, where punishment and protection of the public must be the focus. In these cases, illegal acts and violent behaviour should be treated with appropriate penalties. From reading my views on gun control and firearms legislation, I suspect that many might feel that I am a "gun nut" with pro-American feelings regarding gun possession. This is just not so. Growing up, my family had limited contact with firearms but we were raised to believe that a gun was a serious tool to be used in appropriate circumstances only. I can understand people who emotionally react to guns as all bad but I am convinced that such emotion can mask the true problem of illegal gun possession and/or usage. During my 37 years of policing I carried a handgun as a tool of my profession. I was also exposed to a wide cross-section of collectors and target shooters who used, stored and transported their weapons in a legal and responsible manner. They are not the problem. The misdirection of time, effort and funding is unforgivable. I believe that Canadians are much too astute to believe that either Bill C-68 or the proposed handgun legislation is anything other than a waste of time, effort and money. Wasting public funds that could really make a difference in acute justice issues, in my view, borders on criminal activity. SOURCE: THE NORTH SHORE NEWS, “Gun legislation an election issue” published January 11, 2006 We have long memories . . . and we know who to blame. . The GD Liberals Birth of the Canadian Gun Registry A gang that couldn't shoot straight by John Dixon The Liberals' gun registry program was pointed at Kim Campbell, not crime. That's why it shot itself in the foot, says former justice adviser JOHN DIXON. We now know that the government's gun-control policy is a fiscal and administrative debacle. Its costs rival those of core services like national defence. And it doesn't work. What is less well known is that the policy wasn't designed to control guns. It was designed to control Kim Campbell. When Ms. Campbell was enjoying a brief season of success in her re- election bid in the summer campaign of 1993, Mr. Chretien was kept busy reassuring what he called the "Nervous Nellies" in his caucus that Ms. Campbell's star would soon fall. To bring her down, the Liberals planned to discredit her key accomplishment as minister of justice, an ambitious gun-control package. Those measures -- enacted in the wake of the Montreal Massacre -- Included new requirements for the training and certification of target shooters and hunters. We got new laws requiring: the safe storage of firearms and ammunition, which essentially brought every gun in the country under Lock and key; screening of applicants for firearms licences; courts to actively seek information about firearms in spousal assault cases; the prohibition of firearms that had no place in Canada's field-and-stream tradition of firearms use. I was one of the department of justice officials involved in that Earlier gun-control program. When the House of Commons passed the legislation, Wendy Cukier and Heidi Rathgen of the Coalition for Gun Control, which had been part of the consultation process, supplied the champagne for a party at my Ottawa home. So what were the Liberals to do, faced with a legislative accomplishment on this scale? Simple: Pretend it hadn't happened, and promise to do something so dramatic that it would make Ms. Campbell look soft on gun control. The obvious policy choice was a universal firearms registry. The idea of requiring the registration of every firearm in the country wasn't new. Governments love lists. Getting lists and maintaining them is a visible sign that the government is at work. And lists are the indispensable first step to collecting taxes and licence fees. There is no constitutional right to bear arms in Canada, as is arguably the case in the United States. So why not go for a universal gun registry? The short answer, arrived at by every study in the Department of Justice, was that universal registration would be ruinously expensive, and could actually yield a negative public security result (more on this in a moment). Besides, in 1992 Canada already had two systems of gun registration: the complete registry of all restricted firearms, such as handguns (restricted since the 1930s) and a separate registry of ordinary firearms. This latter registry, which started in the early 1970s, was a feature of the firearms acquisition certificate (or FAC) required by a person purchasing any firearm. Every firearm purchased from a dealer had to be registered to the FAC holder by the vendor, and the record of the purchase passed on to the RCMP in Ottawa. So we were already building a cumulative registry of all the owners of guns in Canada purchased since 1970. The FAC system was a very Canadian (i.e. sensible) approach to the registration of ordinary hunting and target firearms. If you were a good ol' boy from Camrose, Alta., and didn't want to get involved, you didn't have to - as long as you didn't buy more guns. Good ol' boys die off, so younger people in shooting sports would eventually all be enrolled in the system. After the Montreal Massacre, the then-deputy minister of justice, John Tait, asked me to review the gun-control package under development. One thing I immediately wanted to know was how many Canadians owned Ruger Mini-14s (the gun used by the Montreal murderer). The Mini-14 came into production about the time the FAC system was introduced, so the FAC should have a good picture of the gun's distribution. But when our team asked the RCMP for the information, we couldn't get it. Computers were down; the information hadn't been entered yet; there weren't enough staff to process the request; there was a full moon. After a week, I said I didn't want excuses, I wanted the records. Then a very senior person sat me down and told me the truth. The RCMP had stopped accepting FAC records, and had actually destroyed those it already had. The FAC registry system didn't exist because the police thought it was useless and refused to waste their limited budgets maintaining it. They also moved to ensure that their political masters could not resurrect it. Such spectacular bureaucratic vandalism persuaded my deputy and his minister to concentrate on developing compliance with affordable gun- control measures that could work. A universal gun registry could only appeal to people who didn't care about costs or results, and who didn't understand what riled up decent folks in Camrose. Which is precisely why it appealed to those putting together the Liberal Red Book for the pivotal 1993 election. If the object of the policy exercise was to appear to be "tougher" on guns than Kim Campbell, they had to find a policy that would provoke legitimate gun-owners to outrage. Nothing would better convince the Liberals' urban constituency that Jean Chretien and Allan Rock were taking a tough line on guns than the spectacle of angry old men spouting fury on Parliament Hill. The supreme irony of the gun registry battle is that the policy was selected because it would goad people who knew something about guns to public outrage. That is, it had a purely political purpose in the special context of a hard-fought election. The fact that it was bad policy was crucial to the specific political effect it was supposed to deliver. And so we saw demonstrations by middle-aged firearm owners, family men whose first reflex was to respect the laws of the land. This group's political alienation is a far greater loss than the $200-million that have been wasted so far. The creation of this new criminal class -- the ultimate triumph of negative political alchemy -- may be the worst, and most enduring product of the gun registry culture war. John Dixon is a hunter, and president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. From 1991 to 1992, he was adviser to then-deputy minister of justice John Tait. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:38:51 -0600 From: Joe Gingrich Subject: regarding: Don't forget gun wimps Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:37:13 -0700 From: "Jim Pook" Subject: Don't forget gun wimps http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/editorial/2010/09/22/15444276.html Don't forget gun wimps Last Updated: September 22, 2010 8:26pm Then the guns will definitely be out -- just not the kind that require registration. Jim Pook Vancouver Island-North - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the guns are out Harper and his Cons will be sure grab them. Yours in Tyranny, Joe Gingrich White Fox ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:29:47 -0400 From: Lee Jasper Subject: Media responses Tories aim to turn long-gun defeat into victory Steven Chase and Gloria Galloway > http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-aim-to-turn-long-gun-defeat-into-victory/article1719471/ Ottawa— From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published Wednesday, Sep. 22, 2010 8:00PM EDT Last updated Thursday, Sep. 23, 2010 11:35AM EDT Comments about article: 1978 - 23rd. 2:30 p.m. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:18:08 -0400 From: TONY KATZ Subject: RE: Regarding: NTI Supports the Abolition of Long Gun Registry Joe your comment just makes too much sense not to be true which is why we can never depend on any gov't for meaningfull change > The thing to always remember is that owner licensing and firearms > registries are perfectly suited for civilian disarmament. > > The govt. wants to disarm the aboriginals because of Oka. The ever > "friendly" govt. of the day is two faced and makes it as easy as possible > (as you suggest) to license and register aboriginals, to disarm them. > > It was Oka that brought on Kim Campbell's gun grabbing legislation and > later Chretien's more stringent gun grabbing legislation which Harper's > Cons are executing, not the Montreal massacre as most suggest. The Oka > aboriginals scared the govt. and the police and now they want all the > civilian firearms in Canada eventually seized. > > It's just that simple. > > Yours in Tyranny, > Joe Gingrich > White Fox ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V14 #88 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator's email: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca FAQ list: http://www.canfirearms/Skeeter/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://www.canfirearms.ca CFDigest Archives: http://www.canfirearms.ca/archives To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next four lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".)