ERNIE BEADLE – In defence of your position, I totally agree we need gun control, however that control already exists, and it is very stringent on who can own a gun and who can’t

For some time now a local Kamloops Liberal supporter has been taking shots at the Conservative Party over any number of things – all of them negative.  In a recent exchange he accused the party of been against pretty much any and all gun control legislation. Ernie Beadle, of Kamloops, took exception to that – this is his response:

For the record, it was the Conservatives in 1990 who were the FIRST government to bring in gun registry, NOT the Liberals!  Then in 1993, under Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, he further pushed this registry (The Firearms Act was introduced in 1993, and aimed at the licensing of all gun owners and registration of all firearms. The bill also classified replica firearms as prohibited devices, with those already owned being grandfathered).

Move ahead to 1996, and we have Alan Rock (Justice Minister in the Liberal government) telling all Canadians that the Gun Registry would only cost $2 million dollars – meantime in December of 2002, Auditor General Sheila Fraser reported to parliament that through poor management by the federal Liberals, the gun registry would cost over $1 BILLION dollars to set up by the year 2004!

During the 10 years of reign of Liberal Prime Minister Chretien, they allowed this program to cost taxpayers in excess of $1 billion dollars to implement, and then did absolutely nothing to stop this bizarre bleeding of taxpayer dollars.

When the program started in 1993 costs were to be $2 million -- by 1995 they were already $119 million -- in 2001 costs had reached $527 million – by 2002 costs had risen to $629 million -- and by 2004 it was at over a BILLION dollars.

And what did it solve?

Absolutely nothing, and if you people want to try to argue this, I will give you the Stats Can facts on murders since 1993, to date.  It will embarrass you and your argument, so I suggest you don’t go there!

In defense of your position, I totally agree we need gun control, however that control already exists, and it is very stringent on who can own a gun, and who can’t.

This is not the issue.

 

Violent Crime in Canada -- StatsCan

The federal Liberals tried to buy votes by telling the misinformed public that there were going to save Canada with this gun registry ... and it did absolutely nothing to stop murders because ... criminals do not register their firearms.  Instead they still buy illegal guns, and bring them into Canada to commit their crimes. This is he real problem, and it is created by criminals, not the general public.  Still, this vote buying exercise, by the Liberals, cost taxpayers $1billion dollars!

If the federal Liberals really want to solve gun and fire arms related problems, rather than screw the taxpayers with their ill-conceived registry, they should go after the criminals, NOT the law-abiding citizens of Canada!

That, is the root of the problem and the true facts.

PLEASE NOTE ... according to Statistics Canada between 2013 and 2016, there was a 20% increase in homicides in Canada.

This was driven by a substantive increase (+68%) in gang-related homicides over that period. From 2013 to 2016, gang-related homicides occurring in CMAs (Central Metropolitan Areas) almost doubled (from 65 to 121), driven by increases in Toronto (from 13 to 33), Edmonton (3 to 11), and Ottawa (0 to 7).

In 2013, about one in four (27%) homicides were committed with a firearm. By 2016, four in ten (38%) homicides involved a firearm.