The Toronto Star plays the public safety card, gets it wrong.
The long gun registry’s pretty well on its way out. Even the Toronto Star seems to be on to that. Now if only they actually had a clue what’s behind it.
The Star goes into a bit of detail on how the registry shouldn’t be a political issue, but rather an issue of public safety. And they cite the Toronto police chief as backing. Yeah, let’s go looking for proof in the murder capital of Canada, folks. Good call. There’s only one problem, though, with the whole public safety explanation. Murders nationally actually went up in 2008, including those involving guns. And those guns were probably not registered–criminals generally don’t like to do that on account of their activities being, well, criminal.
With the bill now having been granted a second reading, even some liberals–though not Michael Ignatieff, apparently–are cluing into that fact. It’s not a matter of public safety, as much as it is a matter of unwanted and unneeded burocracy. And a multi-billion dollar burocracy to boot. Although, on the bright side, that’s a couple billion dollars the conservatives are working on trimming from the expenses column. Could financial rebalancing really be all it’s about? Or, at least, financial non-wasting? Well, stranger things have happened.
