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[troutbreath]

The lie of the liers


National gun-owner database lives on despite registry repeal, angering some
By: Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press

Posted: 10/22/2012 3:28 PM | Comments: 0g | Last Modified: 10/22/2012 4:05 PM


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Public Safety Minister Vic Toews responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, October 22, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
OTTAWA - Seven months after the federal long gun registry was repealed in every province but Quebec, a small but vocal faction of gun owners is feeling deeply betrayed by the Conservative government.

A registry of gun owners — if not their specific weapons — remains in force under federal licensing provisions that were part of the same 1995 Liberal gun control bill so loathed by the gun lobby. It's a reality to which some sport shooting enthusiasts are just waking up.

Lloyd, a retiree in Uxbridge, Ont., said he was shocked to find a licence renewal form in his mail this summer after celebrating the official April 6 end of the federal registry.

He's written to a Conservative MP and a cabinet minister seeking an explanation, and so far is without a response.

"I'm not planning to renew it," said Lloyd, who asked that his full name not be published because he's about to become an unlicensed gun owner.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's not the law right now.... I know I'm not alone."

Lloyd is indeed not alone — so much so that he perhaps need not fear disclosing his full name.

A Saskatoon-based organization called the Canadian Unlicensed Firearms Owners Association has been taking the fight straight to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, whose portfolio includes the RCMP and the Canada Firearms Centre.

"Your duplicity in dealing with firearms owners seems to know no bounds," Edward Hudson, the unlicensed group's secretary, thundered in the opening line of a May 9 letter to Toews.

The letter, copied to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ended several hundred words later with demands for Toews's resignation.

Announcing oneself as a law-breaker while demanding the ouster of the public safety minister requires a certain chutzpah — especially since Toews was clearly on record describing the reality of the gun registry's repeal.

"First and foremost, all individuals will still be required to be licensed to possess a firearm," Toews told the House of Commons last Oct. 26 as the repeal bill was debated.

"We are committed to ensuring that only responsible and qualified individuals own firearms."

His office did not respond to an interview request.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Greg Cox confirmed in an email that "everyone who possesses or acquires a firearm must still be licensed to do so, whether the firearm falls into the non-restricted, restricted or prohibited class."

"To be clear, licences for individuals must be renewed every five years, which requires that applicants for a new or renewed firearms licence be screened for criminal records, as well as provide personal references," wrote Cox.

That information is then stored in a searchable database that police can use to help determine if weapons may be on a premise — one of many arguments used by police groups and the gun-control lobby to advocate for keeping the weapons-specific registry in place.

Gun owners must have a licence to legally buy ammunition, said Cox, and the Criminal Code includes a mandatory three-year minimum sentence for the "unlawful purchase" of ammunition.

As for any anti-licence protest movement by gun owners — whether wilfully or in the mistaken belief that licences have been repealed — Cox said there's no evidence to date.

Citing 2011 figures, the RCMP put licence renewals at over 90 per cent "so the vast majority of firearms owners understand the difference between their firearms licence, which is a plastic photo ID card, and a registration certificate," for firearms, said Cox.

In fact, it may still be too early to see what impact the gun registry's repeal has had on licensing.

The most recent RCMP numbers available for this year — as of June — show 1,889,650 licensed gun owners in Canada.

That's down more than 13,000 from December 2011, but it does not necessarily indicate a trend. In June 2011, for instance, there were 12,400 fewer licensed gun owners than in June 2012.

Gun enthusiasts complain they continue to get mixed messages from a Conservative government they've long felt was their champion.

Last month, Toews greeted a Quebec court ruling to preserve the registry information in Quebec with a blanket denunciation: "Our Conservative government will continue to fight against any measures that needlessly target law-abiding hunters, farmers and sport shooters."

And so gun lobby groups continue to push the Conservatives to fully gut the licensing provisions.

Earlier this month, Sheldon Clare, the president of the Edmonton-based Canada's National Firearms Association, or NFA, wrote Toews to "strongly recommend the repeal of the requirement to hold a firearms licence merely to own one's own property and that limiting of access be done to those specific individuals who have been convicted of violence."

Coupled with the well-documented unhappiness of gun control advocates at the registry's repeal, both sides of the rancorous gun debate appear to be deeply dismayed.

Into this atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty, a federal government that has budgeted at least $64 million for government advertising this year has committed none of it towards informing Canadians about the current reality of gun legislation.

"The RCMP has no advertising budget for the changes brought about by the recent legislation; however the RCMP (Canadian Firearms Program) website and online fact sheets have been updated accordingly," wrote Sgt. Cox.
 

[IronNoggin]

Much ado about Nothing IMHO.

The REGISTRY for long guns is DEAD!

We've had be be Licensed to own any firearm for a considerable period BEFORE the dreadful mistake of the Registry.

I, amongst many, firmly believe in Licensing OWNERS, NOT their guns (with the obvious exclusion here for Handguns of which I am an Owner).

We will ALWAYS have Licensing in place for owners. As it should be.

Cheers,
Nog

[troutbreath]

I guess, but it does not stop the psyhcos and criminals from getting there hands on guns. But at the end of the day some sort of certification for competency is always worthwhile when dealing with guns. When I bought guns you only needed a license for hand guns, which makes sense as they are not used for hunting game. But the penalties you see given to the gang members for having concealed hand guns is a joke.

[alwaysfishn]

From my understanding since there has no longer been a requirement to register a gun when you buy it, all gun owners have sold their guns and bought new unregistered guns. That alone seems to make the gun registry data worthless.....   

[VAGAbond]

From my understanding since there has no longer been a requirement to register a gun when you buy it, all gun owners have sold their guns and bought new unregistered guns. That alone seems to make the gun registry data worthless..... 

Separate the registry from the subject of a license to own a gun.   You still need a license.  There has never been any suggestion of getting rid of the
license and of course they still have a list of licensees.  The registry is gone, sort of.

I believe there are still two classes of license, the possession only and the acquisition license but information and clarification on how this now works has not been forthcoming in my experience.   However if the registry is gone, how would they know you had obtained a gun for which you are not licensed unless you had a new gun?   So all the licenses should be rolled into one class getting rid of the POL.

[alwaysfishn]

Separate the registry from the subject of a license to own a gun.   You still need a license.  There has never been any suggestion of getting rid of the
license and of course they still have a list of licensees.  The registry is gone, sort of.

I believe there are still two classes of license, the possession only and the acquisition license but information and clarification on how this now works has not been forthcoming in my experience.   However if the registry is gone, how would they know you had obtained a gun for which you are not licensed unless you had a new gun?   So all the licenses should be rolled into one class getting rid of the POL.

You cannot buy a restricted gun from an authorized dealer unless you show your restricted PAL license. Someone that legally owns a restricted firearm and sells it, loses it etc, must report it.

A regular PAL or a POL are basically the same thing, except you can't get a POL unless you already own a POL license. New gun owners must first obtain a PAL license.

Stores or gun owners are no longer required to track who they sell an unrestricted firearm to, they only are required to ensure that you have a PAL or POL..

[adriaticum]

I was against the long gun registry.
But recently I spoke to a fellow who was a CORE instructor and hunter.
From what I understood there is no centralized system (database) that ties people who are licensed to own guns to any guns.
So in fact when a shop sells you a gun, they may or may not do a background check before they sell you a gun.
I don't know if it's a good idea to rely on individual shop keepers to know who owns weapons.
While the long gun registry was a waste of money in the form they set it up, perhaps second thought has to be given to having some sort of centralized body that will provide information on who owns what weapons.
It really is not a compliacated setup and it should not cost a whole lot of money.
We just need to make sure that each shop that sells guns has access to this software and with everybody having web access this should not be complicated.
I don't know, I'm a little confused now about the whole thing.

[alwaysfishn]

The gun registry cost a lot of money....   approximately a billion dollars. It's operating costs projected to be $2 million dollars per year, were over $66 million in it's last year of operation.

What did it achieve?  It assumed hunters, farmers and firearms enthusiasts were untrustworthy with respect to firearms while the actual criminals continued to buy and sell firearms and use them illegally. There were countless errors in the registry and thousands of firearms owners never registered their firearms.

Your suggestion that shop owners should have access to a firearms registry is full of problems. What if a list of firearms owners gets in the hands of criminals and they use that list to rob lawful firearms owners of there firearms?

Shops are already required to ensure that a firearms buyer has a valid PAL or POL. This means the buyer is qualified to own a firearm. Restricted firearms are still being registered.

The idea of monitoring what firearms I own was a bad idea. I own knives and axes as well, should they be registered?