Tories shoot down Liberal, NDP gun registry concession (Canada)

[shadowrider]

OTTAWA — Liberal and NDP concessions to make the gun registry more palatable to opponents are under attack from the governing Conservatives, who contend the proposals are complicated, difficult to execute and even unconstitutional.

Both Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton, in attempts to sell the contentious database to their MPs who are against it, have come up with almost identical plans that would make it free to sign up and decriminalize first-time offences of failing to register.


http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Tories+shoot+down+Liberal+registry+concession/3502271/story.html

[spin]

1. And yet people still push for gun registration in the states...

One country where you would think gun registration would work is Canada. You would be wrong!

It has been estimated that as many as five million gun-owning Canadians have not registered their firearms. As of June 2003, only 6.4 million firearms had been registered, despite a 1974 estimate of ten million guns in Canada. In February 2003, the government announced plans to strengthen the administration of the gun control program. Two days before the election in May 2004, the government dropped all fees for transferring firearms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Canada

If you can't get almost one half of Canadians to register their firearms, why would you expect Americans to comply?

To top that off our Supreme Court has ruled that a felon doesn't have to register his firearm as that would incriminated him.

A recurring question that we are asked, not only by gun control advocates, but even by a number of gun owners is, "What's wrong with mandatory gun registration?" Usually by the time we finish telling them about the Supreme Court decision U.S. v. Haynes (1968), they are laughing -- and they understand our objection to registration.

In Haynes v. U.S. (1968), a Miles Edward Haynes appealed his conviction for unlawful possession of an unregistered short-barreled shotgun. <1> His argument was ingenious: since he was a convicted felon at the time he was arrested on the shotgun charge, he could not legally possess a firearm. Haynes further argued that for a convicted felon to register a gun, especially a short-barreled shotgun, was effectively an announcement to the government that he was breaking the law. If he did register it, as 26 U.S.C. sec.5841 required, he was incriminating himself; but if he did not register it, the government would punish him for possessing an unregistered firearm -- a violation of 26 U.S.C. sec.5851. Consequently, his Fifth Amendment protection against self- incrimination ("No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself") was being violated -- he would be punished if he registered it, and punished if he did not register it. While the Court acknowledged that there were circumstances where a person might register such a weapon without having violated the prohibition on illegal possession or transfer, both the prosecution and the Court acknowledged such circumstances were "uncommon." <2> The Court concluded:

We hold that a proper claim of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm under sec.5841 or for possession of an unregistered firearm under sec.5851. <3>

***snip***

Consider a law that requires registration of firearms: a convicted felon can not be convicted for failing to register a gun, because it is illegal under Federal law for a felon to possess a firearm; but a person who can legally own a gun, and fails to register it, can be punished. In short, the person at whom, one presumes, such a registration law is aimed, is the one who cannot be punished, and yet, the person at whom such a registration law is not principally aimed (i.e., the law-abiding person), can be punished.
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.haynes.html

The Canadian law is an example of an expensive failure:

Canada, which has imposed registration of handguns since the 1930s, does not have much to show for it. In 2006, when the Liberal Party under Prime Minister Paul Martin controlled the government, it was admitted in parliamentary debate that just three crimes in 70 years had been solved as a result of registration. A couple of those cases were debatable because other independent evidence helped solve the crimes. According to the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety, just 4 percent of Canadian handgun murders in 2005 and 2006 were committed with registered handguns, and none of those were registered to the people who committed the crimes. As for long-gun registration, at least as of 2006, not a single violent crime had been solved through registration.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/13/39we-want-them-registered39/

[shadowrider]

2. What's a few billion among friends if it supports a non-productive agency? n/t

[Katya Mullethov]

3. It stood to reason , and was just common sense

Then you got the children ,can't forget them . And if it saved just one life . You cant really put a price on that can you ?

[jazzhound]

4. And despite Canada's failure with this legislation, there

were pols in California who thought it would be just a dandy idea!!

:rofl:

(This is not the ROTFLMAO icon, but rather the ROTFLTKFC* icon.)

*Rolling on the floor laughing to keep from crying