The Gun Registry, the Chiefs, and the Women

I'm glad to see the police chiefs of this country have sent a strong message to gun lovers everywhere. We are not Amerika. And we support the long gun registry

Despite the Con attempts to intimidate them.

And Edmonton Constable Randy Kuntz's ridiculous "survey."

Kuntz organized a straw poll of officers earlier this year through a police member's forum called Blue Line. He said 92 per cent of the 2,631 respondents to his "simple survey" voted in favour of scrapping the registry.

Which I don't believe for a moment. Because I wouldn't trust the gun lobby as far as I can spit. I trust the facts. The long-gun registry does work. It does save lives.

And when these gun nutters say it doesn't make a difference when police officers are called to intervene in some problem, I beg to differ. So do the officers who use it  14-thousand times a DAY. And so does she. 

A family contacted their local police because the father was in a depressed state and they wanted the police to remove all of the firearms from their home. Family members told the police what firearms were in the house. Local police then checked the long gun registry online, which revealed an additional 21 long guns in the home that other family members knew nothing about. Police obtained a warrant and removed all the guns.

The long gun registry costs Canadians $4.1 million a year to operate to track nearly 7 million guns — about 60 cents a year per firearm. With 100,000 women and children leaving their homes in Canada each year fleeing violence, and almost 600 missing and murdered Aboriginal women, the long gun registry is an essential national investment. Does it save lives? On the facts alone: Yes.

And quite frankly on this issue I'd rather hear from women than any other group of Canadians. Because they are so often the victims.

Women have the most to lose if the long-gun registry is abandoned. During domestic violence calls, police use the registry to check if a long-gun is on site. Statistics from the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee found firearms to be present in 47% of domestic homicides in 2007. A woman is 12 times more likely to be murdered if a gun is involved in domestic violence, and the guns most commonly used in domestic violence are long guns, not handguns.

There is a problem with the registry because the Cons have been encouraging gun lovers not to register their guns, so the data is being compromised. We're losing track of guns all over the country.

But the answer is to crack down on those too dumb, too lazy, or too paranoid to fill out a form.

Not throw out a useful tool, and turn our country into Amerika.

I admit I want to discourage gun use in Canada. Especially in urban areas. I hate societies full of weapons. I hate the fact that they threaten police officers, paramedics, firefighters, and ordinary citizens.

And some of the people I love.

But most of all I hate what they do to women.

And I will not FORGET...



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P.S. Gun lovers please spare me your comments. I was willing to argue with you to try to find a compromise. But you wanted all or nothing. So you can have NOTHING...