Toronto Star Editorial: Distorting the Gun Facts

Distorting the gun facts - thestar.com.

"Scrapping the registry is a politically motivated move with no policy rationale."

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"The Mounties say that police consulted the registry some 3.5 million times last year, a huge jump over the year before. And Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair credits registration with helping his force recently uncover a cache of 58 unregistered firearms including a machine gun and submachine gun (both classified as "long guns"), 17 handguns, 35 rifles, four shotguns and thousands of rounds of ammo."

Enough said.

Comments

[Ann Douglas]

Filling out paperwork is a lot less intrusive than having a camera in your home.

And there is paperwork involved with certain activities like owning a car (registering that car), international travel (registering for a passport), even having a baby (registering the birth) Why should owning a gun that could potentially be used as a weapon be any different?

Sometimes the rights of the individual have to be balanced off against the greater good of society. I think this is one of those cases.

[Ian]

Of course, I'd expect the police to use any tool at their disposal, but that doesn't make the tool any more effective at preventing crime. The police would use cameras in everyone's home or wiretaps if they had them, but that doesn't mean we ought to have them.