The first skeleton
From AM 940 out of Montreal:
Canadians will be shocked by the true cost of the federal government's ill-fated gun registry, says new Public Security Minister Stockwell Day.
Day told The Canadian Press that figures bureaucrats have shown him during briefings for his new portfolio are much higher than previously thought. He would not divulge what the tab is, but said it's upsetting.
"Some of these numbers, when we get out all the numbers and when the auditor general releases them all very soon, eyebrows are going to go up," he said Thursday.
The first of what might be many Liberal skeletons to come tumbling out of the closet looks like the Gun Registry.
Who had Gun Registry in the Skeleton Pool?
When the Liberals added the registry to the federal gun control program in 1995, they said it would cost taxpayers no more than $2 million. But the most recent estimates put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bringing the total cost of the gun program to more than $1 billion.
At last estimate, the gun program was said to be consuming $90 million a year to maintain.
I am still baffled that we can track cows and cars and trains and planes without too much trouble, but a billion or two or more to track guns? And these are rifles and shotguns, overwhelmingly held in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
The former Public Safety minister, Anne McLellan, did not win her seat on January 23. So she will be able to hide behind the excuse that she is private citizen now, and thus we might have trouble getting answers to questions. But the silver lining is that if she uses that excuse, she can't very well respond either. Depending on what the Conservatives find and what the auditor reveals, Anne McLellan could be tagged with a major part of the blame.
Good luck finding work in this town ever again.
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Comments
'Anne McLellan could be tagged with a major part of the blame'----who says there is no God??? Don't forget that Allan Rock will be back in Canada--will he be questioned too?
McLellan's famous words 'we have nothing to hide'--repeated 18 times in one QP-- will have to change to 'we cannot hide anything'? The sooner this is brought into the light of day the sooner we will be ready for another election--smoke that you lying, thieving Liberals.
Posted by: George at February 17, 2006 10:47 AM
Ah yes, the famous gun registry that would never work. They tried it in Austrailia and it failed, and police have continually stated the registry's worth (read: none). I hope that the Conservatives scrap this thing. The last thing I want to do is fork over money for something that is completely useless.
Posted by: Pat T. at February 17, 2006 12:14 PM
I'm betting a large chunk of the gun registry funding got kicked right back to the Liberal Party of Canada, why are they so broke though? Like Duceppe says "where's all the money, who got it"?
Posted by: kelly at February 17, 2006 12:47 PM
The British and Austrailian gun-ban's have not only failed, but it made the problem much worse than it was before the ban. In contrast, the 40-ish U.S. states that have allowed law-abiding, tested and trained citizens to carry concealed handguns have shown a dramtic drop in violent crime ( once drug related violence among criminals is factored out ). It would seem that the chance your mugging victim might have the means to defend himself acts as a real deterent. It also helps that Americans have the legal right to defend themselves against criminals ( something Canadians have been denied, to our peril ).
So for all the billions spent, and guns banned, what have we gained? All we needed to do, following the American example, was give us the right to defend ourselves, and give us the legal right to carry ( if you earn the right of course ) a weapon. How much less expensive and more effective would that have been?
As for where the money went? It will be interesting to watch those responsible for the waste, squirm, as the A.G. and the swarm of accountants get to the bottom of this one. Ad-scam will be a drop in the bucket in comparison.
Those rabid anti-gun groups who ignore facts and logic, will of course continue to demand the gun registry to be kept and funded for eternity. They have expended too much political capital to get it this far to ever let go. The only answer is to give them a well deserved PFFFFFFFFFFT and tell them to crawl back into their rat hole.
Posted by: arctic_front at February 17, 2006 01:17 PM
I made some comments to the same effect in Bourque Newswatch a while ago [this morning]. For some reason I can't read the comments. I sugestd this [gun registry] is just the beginnings of the LIEberal [I hope this spelling catches on] problems. I also questioned why the site had not mentioned this article. Just wondering.
Note: remember Anne McLellan's name has changed from "Landslide Anne" to "Landfill Anne" because of her shreading of her documents. It is going to be interesting first days of Paralament seeing the Lieberals try to explain things.
Posted by: Clown Party Of Canada at February 17, 2006 01:50 PM
The problem is that guns don't have unique serial numbers, like a car's VIN #. The serial number on a gun, is usually a 4 -9 character number that is intended to be used only for inventory control. There is the possibility that popular models of guns may have multiple guns with the same serial number.
This makes guns much harder to track, and thus more expensive to build a database for.
Posted by: Curtis at February 17, 2006 01:57 PM
I suspect this is far bigger than just Anne McLellan and Alan Rock et al. I have suspected for a long time it is a liberal slush fund far bigger than ad-scam ever could be. I read somewhere last night (can't remember where or who) that a lot of the costs assosciated with the gun registry is from bidding it out to private contractors. Given what we know about un-tenendered contracts and guys such as David Smith who mis-represented themselves, anyone want to bet this closet is a mass burial site?
Some of you may be interested in this page: The Liberal Gun Farce (geocitiesdotcomslashliberalgunfarce). It's a bit radical in parts as to language. but there seems to be someone knowlegeable behind it and the new info included. Captains Quarter's also has an interesting angle.
Posted by: Cheri at February 17, 2006 02:15 PM
The problem is that guns don't have unique serial numbers, like a car's VIN #. The serial number on a gun, is usually a 4 -9 character number that is intended to be used only for inventory control. There is the possibility that popular models of guns may have multiple guns with the same serial number.
This makes guns much harder to track, and thus more expensive to build a database for.
Posted by: Curtis at February 17, 2006 01:57 PM
WRONG!!!!! Most guns have unique serial numbers. Unless you are manufacturing them in your basement.
Posted by: Denis Morin at February 17, 2006 04:07 PM
Depends. Any gun made for the North American market after 1968 has a unique serial number. The Germans were fond of restarting with #1 at the beginning of each year, pre-WW II. Numerous cheap guns made prior to 1968 had no serial number.
Posted by: RJM at February 17, 2006 06:17 PM
Curtis: "...with the same serial number.
This makes guns much harder to track, and thus more expensive to build a database for."
Naw, if you know databases, you don't have to use serial numbers as the Unique ID but inbase and go from there. Just like a normal database you'll have more than one "Smith", or people at 123 Main St" and so on, so this idea of duplicate serials doesn't wash with making it more expensive.
Posted by: tomax at February 17, 2006 06:21 PM
I wasnt trying to excuse a billion dollar useless registry. I was just stating what most people dont realize. Gun serial numbers are not guaranteed to be unique.
Posted by: Curtis at February 17, 2006 08:31 PM
The failure of the national media: the fact that not a single media organization had the chutzpah to hire an investigative accountant to follow the money trail via 'freedom of information'on this 2 billion gun registry Liberal scandal in time for this past election, is the shame of utter neglect of responsibility that accounts for much of the mess that ensures Canada has remained a virtual one party state for so long. Had the lazy media, or the NDP, or the Conservative Party bothered to follow the money trail in this before the election, we would now have a majority Conservative government!
Posted by: brock at February 17, 2006 11:14 PM
Uh Brock - the Media don't want a Conservative government. Definately not a majority one. And considering how they've portrayed Harper, and villified him; I don't blame him for being camera shy or not wanting to give them the time of day.
Posted by: Cheri at February 18, 2006 01:21 AM
Unique serial numbers:
"Serial numbers from 2000 to 114730 were made March 1960 to December 1968. The height of the serial number itself was changed at about serial number 35,000 from 1/16 on an inch to 1/8 inch. Then due to the “Gun Control Act of 1968”, all firearms manufactured had to have its own unique serial number…no two guns could be numbered the same number. Thus Ruger introduced its “prefix” numbering system in January 1969. The Ruger Bearcat had the prefix of “90” added to its serial numbers. Known are serial numbers 90-00022 to 90-25622."
http://www.gunblast.com/Hamm_Bearcat.htm
Posted by: Steve Janke at February 18, 2006 10:52 AM
Yep, the Bushmcchimpyhitlerharper MSM wouldn't mind one bit if the PM SH were a victim of some malefactors carrying guns.
Thats the thing with irrational fear; you can't reason with them.
I could offer to use my exempted 45 calibre muzzle loader and donate about two cents worth of lead to put this monumental exercise in pork barrel theft out of its misery.
But given that the former LIEberal government was "considering not observing confidence votes" according to Liberal Government Whip Karen Redman MP(May 25, 2005); one has a positive appreciation of the real rationale for the gun registry, namely:
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
Welcome to "Back to the Future", the 1837 Rebellion. Lock and load ladies and gentlemen!
Peace, Order and Good Government now to be replaced by War, Chaos and Bad Government by a LIEberal government coming to you real soon. NOT!!
Posted by: Hans Rupprecht at February 18, 2006 11:01 AM
All I've got to say to Stockwell and Shiella Fraser is Good Hunting.
Posted by: Mike_RoA at February 18, 2006 11:38 PM
A big part of the reason why the gun registry cost so much is how the Liberals imposed it on the country. Before the registry existed, folks used to register their handguns, FACs and all documents at their nearest RCMP detachment. The RCMP knew the processes, had facilites to store guns while the registration process took place, etc etc.
When the Liberals decided they knew better than everyone else how to do things, they started at ground zero- literally. They removed all registration materials from the RCMP detachments and put them into Post Offices.
Since they changed everything, they had to design a new bunch of forms. Anytime you change forms, you have to teach folks how to use them. When folks had questions, the Posties told them to call a toll-free number. Wonderful idea.... NOT!!!
The toll-free number was understaffed so multi-hour waits were the norm. Most folks don't have the patience to wait for the answer so...
Folks started sending in their forms either incomplete or completed wrong (some by accident, some on purpose) which meant some functionary had the joy of trying to make sense of erroneously completed forms they'd only recently learned about themselves.
Since the registry was a political hot-potatoe from the beginning, the Liberals kept throwing more and more money and resources at it, desperately trying to make it work so they could claim success. This effort in trying to clean up a mess succeeding only in creating more of a mess.
The only potential benefit of the registry (ie: letting police know before they go to a residence whether the owner had registered firearms) doesn't work and will never work because the registry is searchable by name, not address... and a name search is next to meaningless unless police have previous knowledge (ie: resident is John L. Smith age 45, not John A. Smith age 42).
Folks, can you say "boondoggle" with me? Pull the plug quick! We've thrown enough good taxpayer dollars after this clusterphuck.
Posted by: Mac at February 19, 2006 04:33 PM
 
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