sir_huntsalot
02-02-2004, 10:27 PM
> Canada's billion-dollar gun registry employs 1,800 bureaucrats, who
> spend their days tracking down duck hunters and farmers. By
> comparison, Canada hired only 130 additional customs officers to
> protect our borders after Sept. 11. Here are a few more eye-rolling
> facts about the gun registry, mostly unearthed by MP Garry Breitkreuz
> from Saskatchewan.
>
> * Internal audits show that government bureaucrats have a 71% error
> rate in licensing gun owners and a 91% error rate in registering the
> guns themselves.
>
> * The government admits it registered 718,414 guns without serial
> numbers. That means either the bureaucrats forgot to write them down,
> or the guns didn't have serial numbers in the first place. That's as
> useless as registering a vehicle simply as "a blue Ford Explorer."
>
> * To these gun owners, the government has sent little stickers with
> made-up "serial numbers" on them, that gun owners are supposed to
> stick on their guns. And everybody at the gun registry is praying that
> criminals who steal those guns won't peel off the stickers.
>
> * Some 222,911 guns were registered with the same make and serial
> number as other guns. That's not just useless-it's dangerous. If
> someone else with a "Blue Ford Explorer" is involved in a hit and run,
> you'll be the one getting a knock on the door by the RCMP.
>
> * Out of 4,114,624 gun registration certificates, 3,235,647 had blank
> or missing entries-but the bureaucrats issued them anyway.
>
> * In the beginning, the government's firearms licenses had photographs
> on them just like driver's licenses do. But after hundreds of gun
> owners were sent licenses with someone else's photo on them, the
> government decided to scrap photos on the licenses altogether, rather
> than fix the problem.
>
> * Private details about every gun owner in the country are put on one
> computer database, called CPIC. That's valuable information to a
> peeping tom-or a criminal. The CPIC computer has been breached 221
> times since the mid-1990s, according to the RCMP.
>
> * In August of 2002, the gun registry sent a letter to Hulbert Orser,
> demanding he register his guns, and warning him that it's a crime not
> to register his firearms. Orser died in 1981.
>
> * Garth Rizzuto is not dead, but he's getting older - he applied for a
> gun licence 21/2 years ago. He hasn't been rejected. They're still
> "processing" his application.
>
> * Some 304,375 people were allowed to register guns even though they
> didn't have a licence permitting them to own a gun.
>
> * On March 1 of 2002, bureaucrats registered Richard Buckley's
> soldering "gun". That's right, a heat "gun" used for welding tin and
> lead. No word yet on Buckley's staple guns or glue guns.
>
> * Some 15,381 gun owners were licensed with no indication of having
> taken the gun safety courses-one of the main arguments for licensing.
>
> * Despite the billion-dollar taxpayer subsidy, gun-owners must still
> pay $279 for the required licenses, registration, photo ID and other
> costs to register a single gun. That's as much as a gun costs in the
> first place. It's a tax - a tax on rural Canada.
>
> * The government spent $29 million on advertising for the gun registry
> - including $4.5 million to Group-Action, the Liberal ad firm now
> under RCMP investigation.
>
> * But all of these follies are trivial compared to the central,
> unanswerable flaw in the gun registry: Since only law-abiding gun
> owners will register their guns, how can the registry stop criminals?
>
> If you think this is information all Canadians should have, forward
> it; ask your political representatives about these facts. You don't
> have to be a gun owner to have concerns on the questionable actions
> taken and situation we are in. Maybe there is a better way?
> spend their days tracking down duck hunters and farmers. By
> comparison, Canada hired only 130 additional customs officers to
> protect our borders after Sept. 11. Here are a few more eye-rolling
> facts about the gun registry, mostly unearthed by MP Garry Breitkreuz
> from Saskatchewan.
>
> * Internal audits show that government bureaucrats have a 71% error
> rate in licensing gun owners and a 91% error rate in registering the
> guns themselves.
>
> * The government admits it registered 718,414 guns without serial
> numbers. That means either the bureaucrats forgot to write them down,
> or the guns didn't have serial numbers in the first place. That's as
> useless as registering a vehicle simply as "a blue Ford Explorer."
>
> * To these gun owners, the government has sent little stickers with
> made-up "serial numbers" on them, that gun owners are supposed to
> stick on their guns. And everybody at the gun registry is praying that
> criminals who steal those guns won't peel off the stickers.
>
> * Some 222,911 guns were registered with the same make and serial
> number as other guns. That's not just useless-it's dangerous. If
> someone else with a "Blue Ford Explorer" is involved in a hit and run,
> you'll be the one getting a knock on the door by the RCMP.
>
> * Out of 4,114,624 gun registration certificates, 3,235,647 had blank
> or missing entries-but the bureaucrats issued them anyway.
>
> * In the beginning, the government's firearms licenses had photographs
> on them just like driver's licenses do. But after hundreds of gun
> owners were sent licenses with someone else's photo on them, the
> government decided to scrap photos on the licenses altogether, rather
> than fix the problem.
>
> * Private details about every gun owner in the country are put on one
> computer database, called CPIC. That's valuable information to a
> peeping tom-or a criminal. The CPIC computer has been breached 221
> times since the mid-1990s, according to the RCMP.
>
> * In August of 2002, the gun registry sent a letter to Hulbert Orser,
> demanding he register his guns, and warning him that it's a crime not
> to register his firearms. Orser died in 1981.
>
> * Garth Rizzuto is not dead, but he's getting older - he applied for a
> gun licence 21/2 years ago. He hasn't been rejected. They're still
> "processing" his application.
>
> * Some 304,375 people were allowed to register guns even though they
> didn't have a licence permitting them to own a gun.
>
> * On March 1 of 2002, bureaucrats registered Richard Buckley's
> soldering "gun". That's right, a heat "gun" used for welding tin and
> lead. No word yet on Buckley's staple guns or glue guns.
>
> * Some 15,381 gun owners were licensed with no indication of having
> taken the gun safety courses-one of the main arguments for licensing.
>
> * Despite the billion-dollar taxpayer subsidy, gun-owners must still
> pay $279 for the required licenses, registration, photo ID and other
> costs to register a single gun. That's as much as a gun costs in the
> first place. It's a tax - a tax on rural Canada.
>
> * The government spent $29 million on advertising for the gun registry
> - including $4.5 million to Group-Action, the Liberal ad firm now
> under RCMP investigation.
>
> * But all of these follies are trivial compared to the central,
> unanswerable flaw in the gun registry: Since only law-abiding gun
> owners will register their guns, how can the registry stop criminals?
>
> If you think this is information all Canadians should have, forward
> it; ask your political representatives about these facts. You don't
> have to be a gun owner to have concerns on the questionable actions
> taken and situation we are in. Maybe there is a better way?