Quebec guns for trouble by Mark Bonokoski
Unlike the rest of Canada, Quebec must think there are dangerous criminals, and even another Marc Lepine, lurking among law-abiding farmers and hunters whose names are in the doomed long-gun registry.If that is the case, those farmers and hunters should be outraged with the Liberal government of Jean Charest. They're being played as pawns.Why, for example, would Quebec Public Safety Minister Robert Dutil announce his government will go to court if the Conservatives use their majority in Parliament to pass legislation abolishing the 16-year-old registry for rifles, shotguns and varmint-hunting pot-shooters? Does he have an empty chamber in his brain? Let's be straight. Marc Lepine, the serial killer behind Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique massacre in 1989, had
legally purchased the rifle he used to commit that outrage.
legally purchased the rifle he used to commit that outrage.
Does he have an empty chamber in his brain?
Let's be straight. Marc Lepine, the serial killer behind Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique massacre in 1989, had legally purchased the rifle he used to commit that outrage.
The police okayed it, but it stopped nothing. No gun law can make police psychics, and treating law-abiding hunters and farmers as potential killers does not bring any clarity to anyone's crystal ball.
Now, Quebec wants to set aside the billion the Chretien Liberals already squandered
to set up an absolutely useless federal gun registry to set up an equally
useless registry of its own -- and throw more good money after
bad.
The last time we looked Quebec was drowning in its debt, not flush with
cash.
"I find it unjust and unfair that the data will be destroyed without first offering
the Quebec government the possibility of recuperating it," Dutil told a news
conference.
He was flanked, of course, by police association members,
gun-control advocates and women's groups.
But he was not flanked by someone who was actually saved by the federal gun
registry.
Why? Because that person, if he or she actually exists, has never been brought
forward. And, without that human prop, there is no evidence to even suggest the
gun registry has benefited public safety.
The Harper government knows this, and we know
this.
But, if the Charest Liberals truly want to inflict this expensive and useless
legislation on their own citizens by going to court to score federal registry
data, then Quebecers had best ready themselves to be robbed
again.
Not at gunpoint, of course.
But at tax time.
—
Mark Bonokoski
Let's be straight. Marc Lepine, the serial killer behind Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique massacre in 1989, had legally purchased the rifle he used to commit that outrage.
The police okayed it, but it stopped nothing. No gun law can make police psychics, and treating law-abiding hunters and farmers as potential killers does not bring any clarity to anyone's crystal ball.
Now, Quebec wants to set aside the billion the Chretien Liberals already squandered
to set up an absolutely useless federal gun registry to set up an equally
useless registry of its own -- and throw more good money after
bad.
The last time we looked Quebec was drowning in its debt, not flush with
cash.
"I find it unjust and unfair that the data will be destroyed without first offering
the Quebec government the possibility of recuperating it," Dutil told a news
conference.
He was flanked, of course, by police association members,
gun-control advocates and women's groups.
But he was not flanked by someone who was actually saved by the federal gun
registry.
Why? Because that person, if he or she actually exists, has never been brought
forward. And, without that human prop, there is no evidence to even suggest the
gun registry has benefited public safety.
The Harper government knows this, and we know
this.
But, if the Charest Liberals truly want to inflict this expensive and useless
legislation on their own citizens by going to court to score federal registry
data, then Quebecers had best ready themselves to be robbed
again.
Not at gunpoint, of course.
But at tax time.
—
Mark Bonokoski