Psycho wrote:It's a very simple concept. Scrap the gun registry.
License + register people who have passed gun training. Monitor those people to ensure if they get convicted of certain crimes, their license is pulled.
Then change the laws so that anybody not licensed who carries a gun gets an automatic year in jail.
Anybody (licensed or not) who is convicted of a crime involving a gun gets an automatic five year (added onto) whatever penalty they receive...
No bargaining - the sentence is non-negotiable...
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The Policy was to "repeal" the C-68 amendments to the firearms act. We have been told that this cannot happen in a minority situation because of opposition.
The entire CPC firearms policy is in the member ratified policy statements.( which mysteriously went missing from the CPC web site to be replaced by the "policy" book at election time...fortunately I have my copy of the finalized, member ratified policy book)
The CPC's civilian firearms policy was amended and approved at the policy convention to specifically REMOVE the
licencing proponent in dealing with legal firearms ownership and activities. The policy is specific that a "screening system" will take place under a certification of fitness to access....a certificate issued to the accepted applicant will be good for life unless convicted of a crime. Federal "Licencing" is a legal dispensation for dealing with contraband and illegal activities and peacfully owning a firearm for legitimate purposes is not illegal activity...it need not be treated as such. Going from a firearms access certification system to an ownership "licence" is the legal vehicle used to criminalize the simple non criminal possession of firearms and bring the subject into the purview of the federal criminal law making jurisdiction.
We will not be going back down that road with replacement legislation.
However, I notice that the original Member-approved CPC firearms policy ( and the member-approved policy book) were taken down on the CPC site and the "platform" document now takes its place.
There are some interesting discrepencies and additions to the CPC firearms "platform" which were done arbitrarily outside deference to the member approved policies.
http://media.conservative.ca/video/2006 ... atform.pdf
You will notice on page 23-24 of the platform book, that the handgun registry( and more importantly the firearms classification system which bans, restricts and prohibits firearms ownership based in irelevant cosmetic characteristics, which then criminalizes your property)
has been added to CPC supported policy....
this was NOT approved by the membership and I can state authoritatively that the group of delegates who formulated and went to the convention to amend and ratify the civilian sporting firearms policy
voted to accept it BECAUSE the handgun registry and "firearms classification system" was not mentioned and was not supported as being retained...as it was specifically left out of 2004/2005/ policy statements and the proposed, amended and accepted policy statements of 2006...I went back to confirm that support for hand gun registry and firearms classification systems were not mentioned in ANY of my CPC "interim" policy documents which we worked from prior to the policy convention mandate.... It was not mentioned as being supported!
We ( firearms owners groups who supported CPC) were led to believe that CPC would have to, by default, decriminalize civilian hand guns because civilian long guns were being decriminalized and regulation given back to the provinces as stated in the policy ( the provinces HAVE to administer regulation for ownership to be decriminalized)....it is an act of constitutional inconsistancy to claim that long gun regulation belongs in provincial misdemenor jurisdiction but hand guns remain criminal and regualted by federal criminal law making power.
Rationally there is no special feature that makes a hand gun any more deadly or dangerous than a long gun....thus the rationale for the firearms classification system is pure bunk and a remnant of the police state control regime which statist liberals, and their paid lobbyists, wanted to turn reasonable civilain fireams law into.
Someone in the leader's office has "sweetened up" the firearms policy for sale during the election...and they did it without consulting the membership, firearms owners groups or even a competent constitutional lawyer....I'm sure Garry Breitkreuz ( the party's expert on the gun law) was not consulted.
It would appear that lawful firearms owners have been sold out again to the will of those departmental policy termites who run and admire police state solutions to responsible civilian firearms ownership.
A further indication of the CPC leadership keeping an arms length approach to firearms owners is evidenced by putting Day into the position of CFC capo......a position Breitkreuz is far more qualified to hold. But Garry is a high profile champion of responsible firearms owners and civilian property rights, obviously, Harper does not want to be accused of courting the "gun lobby" ( all 15 of us) or those "radicals" that actually think they and not the state have property rights.
I see a situation where an new government is trying desparately to find its feet on a massive learning curve...and they are getting bad advise in many areas which the membership and support base made quite clear what they wanted. The the party interests who campaigned for responsible change to the firearms act and the criminal code will have to become active interfacing with the new ministers to aid in their learning process.
If you like things the way they are being handled now...well just continue to sit on your hands...if not, get busy calling/writing your MP, Vic Towes, Stock Day and
politely and accuately address your concerns over their oversights. Stay on 'em until they deliver!
Frankly,
until I see the CPC caucus schedule a firearms act stakeholder's meeting with these ministers and firearms users groups, the provinces and commercial firerms dealers, I'll remain sceptical as to how much priority they place on fulfilling promises to fireams owners.....I recall the sweet talk from Mulroney to fireams groups and the dismal record of his justice ministers in coping with the subject...they legislated in a vacuum with no input from stake holders ( even Trudeau didn't do this)...that is part of the reason we are in the mess we are in today.....bureaucrats taking a police state approach to control peaceful civilian activites then legislating without proper consultayion of the groups the law impacts.
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