MP Letter: Gun control not answer

MP Letter: Gun control not answer
Date: Oct 3, 2006 8:56 AM
PUBLICATION: The Leader-Post (Regina)
DATE: 2006.10.03
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Letters
PAGE: B8
BYLINE: Tom Lukiwski
SOURCE: The Leader-Post
WORD COUNT: 406

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Gun control not answer

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The tragedy of the Dawson College shootings in Montreal does not deserve
the rhetoric and cynical political manipulation we have seen from the
members of the Opposition.

For the past decade, the previous Liberal government has put all of its
eggs in one basket when it comes to preventing gun crime. It invested
over $1 billion into a gun registry that never functioned properly and
was never proven to have prevented a single crime.

While federal gun registry officials were out chasing down farmers for
not registering their .22s, relatively little was being done to attack
criminal gun use. The Montreal tragedy, sadly, was the ultimate proof of
the gun registry's failure. The preliminary police investigation
revealed Kimveer Gill appears to have properly registered all his guns
and complied with every other firearm regulation.

The $1 billion wasted on the registry could have been put to much better
use in putting more police on the streets, providing better equipment
for forensics labs and helping schools and social workers to identify
and deal with troubled youths before they become violent.

The Liberal opposition, blind as always to facts, continues to chant
that we must keep the registry to prevent future crimes, even though it
has failed so abysmally to prevent past ones. The new Conservative
government will not repeat the Liberals' mistakes.

We will not go back to dropping money down the black hole of the gun
registry. Instead, we have undertaken an aggressive campaign of
practical measures to prevent and punish gun crime.

Last month in Regina, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced new
investment of over $200 million into the RCMP training academy that will
help to put 1,000 new police officers on the streets. The 2006 federal
budget provides $20 million, over two years, for communities to help
prevent youth crime with a focus on guns, gangs and drugs.

We have introduced tough new laws that will impose steep minimum
sentences on anyone convicted of a firearms-related offence. These tough
sentences will not only apply to violent acts committed with firearms,
but also to stealing, trafficking or smuggling firearms.

Shamefully, the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc continue to exploit the grief
of families by trying to twist the Montreal tragedy to their own
political advantage. The Conservative government is not interested in
such rhetoric. We are interested only in doing the right things by
taking practical steps to clamp down on gun crime and violent criminals.


Tom Lukiwski
Lukiwski is Conservative MP for Regina Lumsden Lake Centre.
Ottawa