Earlier this week, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (O.F.A.H.), along with the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (C.S.S.A.) and other organizations representing firearms owners across Canada, became aware of an apparent breach of confidentiality involving information contained in the firearms registration system.

This breach strongly justifies earlier calls to scrap the system, as proposed in Bill C-391, currently before the House of Commons.

Ekos Research, a private sector polling company, was contracted by the Canadian Firearms Centre (C.F.C.) to conduct a survey of firearms owners across Canada, and was provided with personal information about firearms owners by the C.F.C., in an apparent breach of privacy and confidentiality. Worse still, the Minister of Public Safety, who is responsible for the C.F.C. and its parent body, the R.C.M.P., was not consulted prior to the release of the information.

“The fact that the C.F.C. would provide highly sensitive information identifying individual firearms owners to an outside polling firm is a travesty,” said Greg Farrant, O.F.A.H. Manager of Government Relations and Communications. “For years, licensed, law-abiding firearms owners have pointed to repeated abuses and breakdowns in what is supposed to be a highly confidential system. When the Liberal government created the system under Bill C-68, they insisted that a violation of this nature would not occur, despite being warned by the firearms community and Opposition members at the time that the potential for serious abuse existed. We hope that this will finally convince Opposition Members in Parliament of the need to scrap the system by supporting Candice Hoeppner�s Bill C-391, which simply proposes to repeal the long gun portion of the firearms system.”

The apparent release of information to Ekos, which occurred in violation of government policy, and without the knowledge and approval of the Minister, who in any case would not authorize the release of such information, is the latest in a long line of procedural gaffs and financial disasters associated with the ill-fated long gun registry, which has cost Canadian taxpayers almost $2 billion to date.

“We are profoundly concerned that an apparent violation has occurred, which has provided a private business with information that is supposed be closely guarded. The government has referred this matter to the Privacy Commissioner for a ruling on whether the Act has been breached, an action we strongly support. It is inexcusable that information of this nature should be made so readily available. The timing of this action is highly suspect, given the apparent source of the information, and the fact that Second Reading of Bill C-391 to scrap the long gun registry is scheduled in the House of Commons next week,” said Farrant.

With over 100,000 members, subscribers and supporters, and 660 member clubs, the O.F.A.H. is the largest nonprofit conservation-based, fish and hunting organization in Ontario and the voice of anglers and hunters. For more information, visit www.ofah.org.

*Muskoka Outdoors Take: You may be wondering why this is a big deal. I suppose it is not IF the information gathered about the firearms is not released to the wrong people. Potentially, the big deal is, that addresses of gun owners have been taken from a ’secure’ database located with the RCMP. Gun owners were told their information would be private and secure. It’s possible that firearm owners could now be targeted by any criminal idiot who ‘accidentally’� gets access to our information.

Further proving he is ‘Out of Touch’ with solutions to gun crime and Canada’s current restricted weapon legislation, Dion stated (in Quebec) that he would ban assault weapons from Canada. The Toronto Star quotes Dion as saying,

“Military assault weapons have no connection to hunting or sport shooting, and serve absolutely no purpose in our society. No one outside of the military needs these weapons and we would all be safer without them in Canada,” Entire Toronto Star Article Here

There are ALREADY strict controls and regulations regarding prohibited (and restricted) firearm use that the owners of these weapons must follow.  Taking a quick look at the Canadian Firearms Act for these type of weapons, you will read an example of the measures that must be taken JUST to transport prohibited/restricted weapons.

The regulations read,

An authorization to transport that takes the form of a condition attached to a licence must:

(a) identify all of the firearms to which the authorization to transport applies; and

(b) specify

(i) the period for which the authorization to transport is issued,

(ii) the places between which the firearms to which it applies may be transported, and

(iii) the reasons for which the firearms may be transported between the specified places.

CONDITION

4. A chief firearms officer who issues an authorization to transport shall attach to it the condition that the firearm be transported by a route that, in all the circumstances, is reasonably direct.

This is something the law-abiding owners are to do when transporting their prohibited/restricted firearms. These are the ONLY people that an assault weapon ban will impact. Not Criminals.

That’s really effective Mr. Dion. The criminals will appreciate that your proposed legislation has no impact on their activities.

Criminals could care less about bans and firearms laws. There are already laws (like the example above) in place to protect regarding the Canadian Public.

Perhaps, Mr. Dion, should ban alcohol from Canadian society?  One could argue that it has no apparent value or use. More people are killed from alcohol related deaths than firearm related deaths.

In 2005, MADD Canada reported that,

“In 2005, it was estimated that 3,226 individuals were killed in motor vehicle crashes in Canada. MADD Canada estimates that at a minimum 1,210 of these fatalities involved impaired driving. Moreover, in MADD Canada’s opinion, the 1,210 figure is a conservative estimate, due to the underreporting that results from the inability to test surviving impaired drivers and reliance on police reports.” Entire MADD article here

Contrast that with an article in the CBC about gun deaths in 2005,

“It says that 816 people — 767 males and 49 females — died of firearms-related injuries in Canada in 2002, the most recent year examined in the study. This represented 2.6 deaths per 100,000 population…” Entire CBC article here

It seems the safety of Canadians may be better served by looking at alcohol related deaths.

If you want to protect Canadians from gun crime put more money into law enforcement and have the guts to pass and ENFORCE laws that target gun criminals.

So, four guys get ‘detained’ and 5 registered long guns (or rifles/shotguns) get confiscated in Vancouver’s West End. CTV News’ somewhat ’sensationalized’ report said,

That’s when the men were taken into custody and five long-barreled rifles were seized, she said. But after checking police found out that the guns were legally registered to one of the men. Entire CTV Article Here

The article then says that there could still be charges laid because they are investigating if the firearms were being ‘correctly’ transported.

Come on.

How hard is it to determine if the firearms were unloaded, the action removed (where applicable), and trigger locks in place (where applicable), and locked in a trunk or similar compartment? You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes or CSIS to figure that out! Transporting Non-Prohibited Firearms rules can be found on the Department of Justice Website. The photo in the article would certainly indicate that the firearms were in cases. That exceeds the law requirement in this case. One could be fairly safe in saying that a bank robber wont’ bother to take the time to case and un-case and load their rifle on the bank’s doorsteps.

Perhaps, the ‘alert citizen’ and CTV news could read up on these rules before they jump to conclusions. The citizens harrassed in this news article did nothing wrong. Start chasing gang members, bank robbers, terrorists and associated idiots with unregistered guns and leave the law abiding citizens alone.

Ok. Let me get this right. If the below media release is true, our tax dollars will be paying law enforcement to go into the homes of elderly Canadians who have FOLLOWED the law and registered their guns. All this will happen while criminals will remain unharrased.

How does this reduce gun crime? Anybody know?

Read the following media release from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters:

————————————————————————
War vets and older hunters targets of inspection
O.F.A.H. cries foul over new draconian measures to secure firearms
————————————————————————

TORONTO- If the Ontario Chief Firearms Officer has his way, it would appear that law-abiding senior citizens living in Toronto may no longer be protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Chief Firearms Office (CFO) has announced that, effective immediately, it will undertake a “pilot initiative” targeting owners of firearms in the City of Toronto who are over the age of 75 and who possess ten or more firearms, to a mandatory search of the premises.

“Once again, law-abiding firearms owners are the focus of seriously misguided attempts to crack down on crime,” said Greg Farrant, Government Relations Manager for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (O.F.A.H.). “This move threatens the rights of senior citizens who are not a problem, and plays to the rhetoric of politicians in the City of Toronto. Instead of focusing on the real problem, the proliferation of illegal handguns on the streets of Toronto and their use against others, Toronto police have somehow convinced the CFO that seniors over the age of 75 who own several firearms are a threat to public safety. This will impact upon veterans, collectors and hunters, and the Federation opposes this tactic and encourages those affected to use every legal option available to them.” Continue Reading

I hope they can do it. Stockwell Day had this to say about the issue:

Our Government has made a commitment to repeal the long-gun registry and we are following through on our promise,” said Minister Day. “These legislative amendments will allow us to continue focusing on more effective measures to tackle crime and keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals. Our goal is to provide law enforcement with the tools and resources they need to combat gun violence and other serious crimes.” Entire Article Here.

Imagine what could have been done with the 1 BILLION dollars that was wasted to create this registry! It did nothing to solve gun crime. Check out this stat from this article,

There are nearly 7 million registered long-guns in Canada. Yet of 2,441 homicides recorded in Canada since mandatory long-gun registration was introduced in 2003, fewer than 2 percent (47) were committed with rifles and shotguns known to have been registered. (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics).

Don’t you feel safe?

I am trying to get a grip on the number of zeros there are in 1 billion.

Let’s see…. $1,000,000,000 = 9 Zeros

Now let’s divide that huge number by the average salary of an Ontario Police Officer (as seen on this site)

$1,000,000,000 divided by $51,000 = ~19,607 more police officers

Talk about crime fighting potential.

This great article compares the number of gun deaths in Canada with the number of boat related deaths in Canada.

If the stats are legit (there is no reason to suggest they are not), I wonder if we could have used the 2 billion dollars wasted on our gun registry to prevent these deaths? Continue Reading