COLUMN: REGISTRY FIRING BLANKS

COLUMN: REGISTRY FIRING BLANKS
Date: Aug 15, 2005 7:56 AM
PUBLICATION: The Toronto Sun
DATE: 2005.08.14
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Comment
PAGE: C7
BYLINE: CHRISTOPHE CONN
WORD COUNT: 486

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REGISTRY FIRING BLANKS

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As I sift through the various Toronto newspapers, I have come to realize
how distorted the perception of crime in your city has become.

The premier of Ontario, various high-placed police personalities and
organizations such as the Coalition for Gun Control have created a maze
of finger-pointing and a half-hazardly assembled set of conclusions,
dismissing any true productive approach. The use of statistics has
become the norm for explaining why people get shot and offer a simpleton
perception of how to deal with the problem.

For instance, we're told some 50% of guns are collected by theives from
legitimate law-abiding collectors. Really? This must show that the
firearms registry is doing its job, and that not only can we solve a
murder mystery by looking up the gun's origins on the registry, we can
also solve a break-and-enter theft that is so far unresolved.

But that, unfortunately, is just a smokescreen. To date the firearms
registry has not solved any crimes, nor has it helped jail any
gun-toting thugs from downtown Toronto, or even small-town Saskatchewan.


And it has created the myth that the responsible, law-abiding firearms
owner is somehow part of an enormous conspiracy to arm the drug dealers.


Secondly, we hear "more than 50%" of guns used in crime are smuggled
from the U.S. Not only is that a poor show for our border patrol, it is
just another way to overshadow our own shorcomings by painting our
neighbours as being a bad influence. Where is our police force? Where is
our intelligence agency?

I find it sad that the reasons people actually pursue the interest in
obtaining an illegal firearm and their disregard of the law are not
really productively explored.

There is no effort to come to grips with the fact that people in your
great metropolis are poor, going hungry, and a great number are
desperate.

This situation should not exist in a socialist democracy, since the aim
of society is to help the less fortunate. When all else fails, blame the
other guys intead of our own shortsightedness.

We can continue to pretend that the Canadian firearms registry is not a
total fiasco.

We can also close our eyes to the relationship of poverty and crime and
focus on a symbol most consider evil to score political points and win
votes.

We can continue to throw numbers at the media to inspire fear in the
hearts of readers, to create doubt in the mind of average Canadians to
remind them that when voting time comes around, it is ever important to
cast their votes for the party that seems to be doing what needs to be
done to make life safer in our communities -- regardless of it being
true or not.

The sad reality is that we as a people have spent billions of dollars on
a failed project, that of the firearms registry.

It is uninspired to continue to believe that the lawless will be stopped
by additional or more severe legislation.

The only true utopia in Canada is that of the criminal element, since
funds and resources that could be directed against them are wasted in
press conferences and wordy speeches of the "success" of the firearms
registry.

The only success in the minds of many is the unhindered ability for
criminals to conduct business as usual. What is worse is that our
politicians are cashing in on their monumental failures, and we are
creating organizations and media reports to apologize in their name.