I am dismayed that several NDP members of Parliament are changing their support of abolishing the long-gun registry and that the Chiefs of Police are supporting them in this waffling.
It is mind-boggling to think of the wasted tax dollars spent on a long-gun registry that has neither the ability to track guns that are not, nor will ever be registered and how $2 billion dollars could have been better spent on more useful law enforcement.
There is no evidence the long-gun registry prevents crime. The police admit as much. The registry is accessed by police officers, in many cases on residential addresses, to determine the number and type of weapons that may be in a home. How many law-abiding citizens with properly registered long guns have been ‘taken down’ forcefully by police because the long-gun registry indicated there were weapons in a home?
Criminals do not register guns. Most guns used in crimes are stolen. All the long-gun registry does in these cases is assist the police in tracking down the original owner. This was the case after James Roszko murdered four RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe. After the fact, one of the long-guns was registered and used to track Shawn Hennessey, but was of no consequence in preventing this violent crime.
No one has provided any proof that the long-gun registry has saved lives or reduced crime. Imagine if the $2 billion worth of resources from the bottomless pit had been used to place more officers on the front lines with state of the art equipment and the training and support these frontline officers need to do their jobs.
What the long-gun registry has accomplished so far is to waste billions of dollars of unnecessary government spending on a long-gun registry that will never be a complete inventory of Canadians’ long-guns and certainly will never include the weapons of non-law-abiding Canadians. On Sept. 22, I will be voting to get rid of it.
Brent Rathgeber, member of Parliament, Edmonton-St. Albert
