(Aired on September 23, 2010)
If you ask any RCMP officer what's his or her most dangerous assignment, many will tell you it's domestic disputes. Emotions run particularly high, and you never know what will happen in those circumstances. They will also tell you that the more information they have going in, the better they feel about being able to resolve a situation. Prior offenses, restraining orders, history of violence, all are important.
You know what else is important? Whether or not the people have any firearms registered in their names. That's why I can't understand the Conservative government's desire to end the long-gun registry. The government MPs continue to suggest that the registry is stupid because criminals don't register their guns, that the registry only hampers legitimate hunters and gun owners.
In part, that's true. But the reality is that a high percentage of gun offenses, excluding organized crime hits, involve registered guns. Guns that are used in anger in a confrontation often spurred by domestic tension. The more information police have, the better they can serve. You can't foretell everything even if you have all the details, but it would certainly help in the way you deal with issues.
I don't think the long gun registry is perfect. It costs a lot more money than I think it should. And that's one of the arguments against it. But surely there must be ways of dealing with that problem and keeping the registry alive. I understand the concerns over the registry from rural Canada, but I don't believe their frustration should be considered above safety. If the registry has value for the police, that in itself should top any backwoods hunter from feeling frustrated that he has to register his gun. It just makes good common sense.
The Stephen Harper government needs to reevaluate its policies on this issue, and instead of concentrating on defeating the registry, concentrate on things like the economy, and justice and education, issues that have far higher priority than the gun registry.
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I believe the current government knows exactly what they are doing in regards to the long gun registry. They are using the issue to get into a political you-know-what match with the opposing parties, while law-abiding gun owners and taxpayers alike are stuck getting wet in the middle. As a young person, this has been a rude awakening to the facts of life on parliament hill.
ReplyDeleteIt would seem that "facts" have little to do with politics, however. The "pro-registry" side of the house offers only assurances that the registry saves lives and protects police officers (but no proof or explanations as to how), while the conservatives carefully word their comments to only include rural hunters and farmers, but NOT target shooters...after all, they want to keep the handgun registry, so why build a case against it, too?
Political gamesmanship aside, why does the media insist on adding to the confusion? I can cite many examples, but lets stick with the example used by Mr. Collins. He states that it is important for a police officer responding to a domestic violence call to know if anyone involved has a firearm registered to them. Sounds reasonable, right? The officer checks the registry, no guns are registered to the name(s) he was provided. If you ask any police officer how he or she would proceed at this point, how many do you think would assume that there are definitely no firearms present? Seeing that there is a firearm registered to a potential suspect only confirms what would already be assumed: there is always the possibility that a weapon could be present.
I understand that the vast majority of non-gun owners don't have any interest in researching how our current laws actually work, but I do expect better from the media.