The purpose of the gun registry – part 2
August 26, 2010 · By Mark Peters
In the previous entry (below), I linked to an article at National Post that described how police chiefs will unanimously endorse a “national firearms strategy,” a key component of which is the long gun registry. I also argue the main purpose of the gun registry is to assist with the seizure of long guns, and that police are spending too much time harassing long gun owners when the real threats to public and police safety are left alone.
Now, from the Canadian National Firearms Association:
It has come to the attention of Canada’s National Firearms Association that the political police chief heads of law enforcement associations are planning a nation wide blitz against licensed firearms owners, as retribution for the political action of the Canadian firearms community that has resulted in the final vote in parliament of Manitoba MP Candice Hoeppner’s Bill C-391. [...]* All paperwork offenses will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, despite the current limited federal government amnesty which ends in May 2011.
* Home inspections will be performed on an ever increasing basis on firearms owners with more than ten registered firearms, and all restricted and prohibited firearms owners.
* Registered firearms will be seized despite their legal use or status, with the onus put on their owners to navigate the firearms bureaucracy and legal system in order to retrieve them. Furthermore, CACP will lobby for a national handgun ban, the confiscation of all registered handguns in Canada, and the reclassification of all semi automatic firearms as “Restricted” or “Prohibited” firearms.
CACP lobbyist Bill Blair’s record as Chief of the Toronto Police Service is an indication of the treatment by law enforcement he wishes to impose on all Canadians. As Chief of Police, Bill Blair ordered Toronto Police Service to target senior citizens and confiscate their firearms for paperwork offenses, and conduct a campaign of harassment against anyone with a firearms license and a registered firearm. (Emphasis mine.)
Is it any wonder police are seizing more long guns than handguns each year?
Does anyone know the real cost of the registry per year?
Blair says $4 million, but they also say it employs 200 people.
How do you hire 200 civil servants for $4 million a year and pay all the other expenses?
Blair has a history of lying to us for our own good, ie, the G20 fence law that wasn’t.
Stan
I think the key is to separate the long run registry (LGR) from the National Firearms Centre (NFC). My reading indicates $4M as the average annual cost to maintain the LGR, which, having a software development background, I can tell you is an *astounding* number.
The oft-quoted $4M is not the annual budget of the NFC. The cost to maintain the LGR may be included within the annual budget of the NFC, but we can safely assume the annual operating budget of NFC is much higher than $4M.
I’ll see if I can dig up the NFC budget, though I suspect it’s hidden in the RCMP budget.
Thanks,
Kevin Gaudet (CTF?) says the registry costs all three levels of government $106 million a year.
http://www.ottawasun.com/comme.....41726.html
It would be nice to see a breakdown and a bit of back up for that figure.