Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Martin Eliminates Crime by Decree
Who knew it could be so easy to solve complex problems like crime using nothing more than bluster? Last week, wearing his best "very, very concerned" mask, Martin declared illegal guns, well, even more illegal. I am reminded of the scene from the movie Canadian Bacon in which the U.S. President is in political trouble and the brilliant plan that his aides devise is that they need a war to prop up his sagging popularity. The plan is to trick the Canadians into provoking the U.S. to invade Canada. The scene: one of the American agent provocateur is driving a truck which has lots of derogatory anti-Canadian slogans spray-painted all over the sides. It is pulled over by a Canadian police officer. The driver starts to splutter, "But, but, but officer, it was some kids who did this at the hotel last night." The officer, politely of course, tells the driver that he has to issue a ticket because the insults are not in both official languages.
Martin's realization that handguns have to be banned during the election campaign without even breathing a word of this before the campaign smacks of opportunism and amounts to nothing more than another feel-good, do-nothing, piece of legislation like the Firearms Act, in which the primary objective was and is to be seen to be doing something rather than actually doing anything. The flaws in Martin's #1 priority du jour are many.
Canada has had the tightest restrictions on handgun ownership in the industrialized world since 1934. The only legal use for privately owned handguns are for target shooting or for collecting. Firearms owners, the majority of whom are law-abiding people, have dutifully obtained licenses, registered their guns, complied with storage and transportion laws, and have jumped through all the hoops that successive governments have put into place. No amount of laws or regulations will stop a criminal intent on obtaining a gun from obtaining one. The argument that what we need is more laws is just idiotic. Criminals, by definition, don't comply with the law. What makes anyone believe that the people who have been going around murdering other people using a handgun are going to stop just because the government made the tool which they use to commit murder even more illegal than it already is? If someone is willing to commit murder, why would a minor detail, like the tool which they use to commit the murder be of concern to them or did I miss the gaping loophole in the law that gives anyone who murders using a gun a free pass?
We were told that the Firearms Registry, which was supposed to have cost $2 million is ending up at 1000 times as much, was supposed to address these problems. Many people, firearms owners and otherwise, were very suspicious over the government's motives for registering all guns arguing that the only thing that registries have ever been used for have been to confiscate guns, not catch criminals. It did not help when liars like Alan Rock spoke out of both sides of their mouths on the issue, e.g. Rock is on record as saying that he does not believe that anyone besides the police or military should own guns. Setting aside the nasty implications of the agents of the state owning all the guns, it should not come as a big surprise that people who supported the rights of firearms owners were very suspicious of this liar, Rock, and his cohorts. How could the key players who created the mess that is C-68 have been objective when he had these pre-conceived notions about who should and who should not own firearms? Anyway, with Martin's announcement last week, it should be obvious that the concerns of firearms owners were not only legitimate but that the critics who dismissed them were at best being naive. One of the points in the announcement was that the Liberals are proposing to eliminate the registration fees on long guns in the hopes that people who have not already registered, will register. After their latest gun grab, I cannot imagine too many people would be in a big rush to register their firearms because they know that the long guns are next.
Something that was pointedly omitted from Martin's announcement was how much they had budgeted to compensate the owners of the guns whose guns they were going to confiscate. Knowing how credible they have been on firearms related expenditures, whatever the Liberals claim, to be on the safe side, we should probably multiply it by at least a factor of 100.
Firearms owners have been duped into adopting the language of the anti-gun crowd, e.g. "illegal" guns. That term is utter nonsense. They have managed to convince even many gun owners that there is such a thing. Behaviours, like committing murder, are and should be illegal. Behaviours, like not filling in firearm registrations forms properly or jumping through bureaucratic hoops like registering or licensing, which are really intended to harass otherwise law-abiding citizens into submission, should not be illegal. Even if we accept the premise that there is such a thing as an "illegal" gun, the usual whipping boy for those things is the big, bad U.S. Blaming the U.S. for "illegal" guns is just as stupid as the Americans blaming Canada for undesirables who may find Canada a convenient way station on their way to the U.S. That border is manned on both sides and each side has to be responsible for looking out for its best interests instead of blaming the other side for things that are within its power to address.
For the record, I had never even touched a gun in my life until four years ago. I became the owner of multiple firearms as an act of political protest. My only regret is that I did not do it much sooner, before all the nonsensical licensing and registration requirements came into place so that I could have had the option of not registering the firearms as a real act of protest. People who argue that we're required to register lots of things, like cars for example, miss the point. Violations of the Firearms Act are Criminal Code offences. Violations of the regulations surrounding the registration of vehicles are not. Until not notifying the agents of the state of a change of address by a firearms owner is no longer a Criminal Code offence, there is no comparison. I have forgotten to change the address on my driver's license and vehicle registrations before and it did not make me an instant criminal. Not renewing my PAL (Possession and Acquisition License) or not registering my firearms would make me a criminal, though I fail to see who the victim would be in that case besides me. Those who had owned firearms for many years had to register them in order to be allowed to own something they already owned. "Kafkaesque" is the word that comes to mind.
To conclude, this is nothing more than the politics of fear (again) that the Liberals are playing. It puts the Conservatives in a bind because almost anything they say on the matter is going to be twisted into a "Do you beat your wife often?" type of question where the Conservatives will be portrayed as scary gun nuts. The unfortunate end result of this is that rational debate is silenced and the really fundamental issues surrounding private ownership of guns never get discussed. The longer that state of affairs continues, the more it favours the people who favour eliminating private ownership of guns. Sadly, history tends to repeat itself. I'm sure the intellegentsia of the day in Germany had no problems with the Nazis abolishing private ownership of guns. I am not suggesting the Liberals are Nazis. They, as well as the Conservatives, do have an authoritarian and statist bent and have some elements of fascism in their policies but they are not Nazis. However, it is foolish to assume that governments are always benign and that they can be trusted without reservations. History has shown time and again that the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.
Martin's realization that handguns have to be banned during the election campaign without even breathing a word of this before the campaign smacks of opportunism and amounts to nothing more than another feel-good, do-nothing, piece of legislation like the Firearms Act, in which the primary objective was and is to be seen to be doing something rather than actually doing anything. The flaws in Martin's #1 priority du jour are many.
Canada has had the tightest restrictions on handgun ownership in the industrialized world since 1934. The only legal use for privately owned handguns are for target shooting or for collecting. Firearms owners, the majority of whom are law-abiding people, have dutifully obtained licenses, registered their guns, complied with storage and transportion laws, and have jumped through all the hoops that successive governments have put into place. No amount of laws or regulations will stop a criminal intent on obtaining a gun from obtaining one. The argument that what we need is more laws is just idiotic. Criminals, by definition, don't comply with the law. What makes anyone believe that the people who have been going around murdering other people using a handgun are going to stop just because the government made the tool which they use to commit murder even more illegal than it already is? If someone is willing to commit murder, why would a minor detail, like the tool which they use to commit the murder be of concern to them or did I miss the gaping loophole in the law that gives anyone who murders using a gun a free pass?
We were told that the Firearms Registry, which was supposed to have cost $2 million is ending up at 1000 times as much, was supposed to address these problems. Many people, firearms owners and otherwise, were very suspicious over the government's motives for registering all guns arguing that the only thing that registries have ever been used for have been to confiscate guns, not catch criminals. It did not help when liars like Alan Rock spoke out of both sides of their mouths on the issue, e.g. Rock is on record as saying that he does not believe that anyone besides the police or military should own guns. Setting aside the nasty implications of the agents of the state owning all the guns, it should not come as a big surprise that people who supported the rights of firearms owners were very suspicious of this liar, Rock, and his cohorts. How could the key players who created the mess that is C-68 have been objective when he had these pre-conceived notions about who should and who should not own firearms? Anyway, with Martin's announcement last week, it should be obvious that the concerns of firearms owners were not only legitimate but that the critics who dismissed them were at best being naive. One of the points in the announcement was that the Liberals are proposing to eliminate the registration fees on long guns in the hopes that people who have not already registered, will register. After their latest gun grab, I cannot imagine too many people would be in a big rush to register their firearms because they know that the long guns are next.
Something that was pointedly omitted from Martin's announcement was how much they had budgeted to compensate the owners of the guns whose guns they were going to confiscate. Knowing how credible they have been on firearms related expenditures, whatever the Liberals claim, to be on the safe side, we should probably multiply it by at least a factor of 100.
Firearms owners have been duped into adopting the language of the anti-gun crowd, e.g. "illegal" guns. That term is utter nonsense. They have managed to convince even many gun owners that there is such a thing. Behaviours, like committing murder, are and should be illegal. Behaviours, like not filling in firearm registrations forms properly or jumping through bureaucratic hoops like registering or licensing, which are really intended to harass otherwise law-abiding citizens into submission, should not be illegal. Even if we accept the premise that there is such a thing as an "illegal" gun, the usual whipping boy for those things is the big, bad U.S. Blaming the U.S. for "illegal" guns is just as stupid as the Americans blaming Canada for undesirables who may find Canada a convenient way station on their way to the U.S. That border is manned on both sides and each side has to be responsible for looking out for its best interests instead of blaming the other side for things that are within its power to address.
For the record, I had never even touched a gun in my life until four years ago. I became the owner of multiple firearms as an act of political protest. My only regret is that I did not do it much sooner, before all the nonsensical licensing and registration requirements came into place so that I could have had the option of not registering the firearms as a real act of protest. People who argue that we're required to register lots of things, like cars for example, miss the point. Violations of the Firearms Act are Criminal Code offences. Violations of the regulations surrounding the registration of vehicles are not. Until not notifying the agents of the state of a change of address by a firearms owner is no longer a Criminal Code offence, there is no comparison. I have forgotten to change the address on my driver's license and vehicle registrations before and it did not make me an instant criminal. Not renewing my PAL (Possession and Acquisition License) or not registering my firearms would make me a criminal, though I fail to see who the victim would be in that case besides me. Those who had owned firearms for many years had to register them in order to be allowed to own something they already owned. "Kafkaesque" is the word that comes to mind.
To conclude, this is nothing more than the politics of fear (again) that the Liberals are playing. It puts the Conservatives in a bind because almost anything they say on the matter is going to be twisted into a "Do you beat your wife often?" type of question where the Conservatives will be portrayed as scary gun nuts. The unfortunate end result of this is that rational debate is silenced and the really fundamental issues surrounding private ownership of guns never get discussed. The longer that state of affairs continues, the more it favours the people who favour eliminating private ownership of guns. Sadly, history tends to repeat itself. I'm sure the intellegentsia of the day in Germany had no problems with the Nazis abolishing private ownership of guns. I am not suggesting the Liberals are Nazis. They, as well as the Conservatives, do have an authoritarian and statist bent and have some elements of fascism in their policies but they are not Nazis. However, it is foolish to assume that governments are always benign and that they can be trusted without reservations. History has shown time and again that the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.
