It’s passed second reading by a vote of 164 to 137, a margin of 27 votes. As Dave Kopel points out, that means that 20 members of the other party have joined conservatives in voting this way.
This is very positive. Very positive. It’s one of the only other countries turning back gun control currently, and we’ve had a rough time on the international front.
Do you think part of the problem in Canada is their gun registry program was not organized as well as it could have been? Were the folks in charge of it lacking in knowledge and experience the way the American anti-gun politicians often are? If a gun registry were done properly, do you think it could achieve its stated goal? Or is this like the AWB, something that’s inherently impossible to describe and implement?
What is the purpose, in your view, of a gun registry?
If it is to avoid the use, in crime, of guns, then it is purposeless, because long guns are barely ever used in crime.
But if the purpose is to drive down the amount of guns in general, I think it’ll do the trick. The question is if we want to do that.
“Do you think part of the problem in Canada is their gun registry program was not organized as well as it could have been?”
No the problem is the scale of the thing. The registry effort itself was huge. Maintaining and updating the registry of millions of guns required massive amounts of money, time, and effort. They spent tens of billions on it. Yet the gun registry itself was only useful in a very small number of crimes. Even neglecting the civil liberties issues with the thing, the cost-benefit ratio isn’t there. And the same can be said of similar US programs to do the same thing.
The problem was not insufficient organization. They spent $2,000,000,000 trying to track 8 million longguns – that’s $250 each.
The problem was lack of compliance. Outside the urban zones (which is most of geographic Canada), people just didn’t bother registering. Longguns are straight-up survival and sustenance tools; registration is akin to begging permission to have a seat belt or use a shopping cart. Even police wouldn’t bother with registration issues if non-compliance was someone’s only “crime”.
The main problem with such registries is that there is no intended viable _outcome_. The authorities know which law-abiding citizens have abided by the law – so what? In practice, regarding dozens (hundreds?) of registration systems in all countries/states tracking hundreds of millions of firearms for decades, registries have done practically NOTHING to stop or solve crimes. Registries do not, and can not, achieve their stated goals (unless the goal is cessation of legitimate & lawful ownership) because the goals are so ill-conceived. One does not stop drunk driving by breathalyzing only teetotalers.
Government only exists by the consent of the governed. In the case of Canada’s longgun registry, the governed did not consent, rendering the attempt useless.