Up and running for little more than a month, the new federal gun registration system is a success – or a total failure, depending on who you talk to.
The Canadian Firearms Centre, the government agency that administers the gun registry, says the growing pains are behind it and the system is now working well and has already caught convicted criminals trying to illegally obtain firearms.
Opponents of gun registration tell a different story.
“It was an absolute debacle,” said Craven, Sask., gun dealer Jon Taylor about problems at the Edmonton gun show in early December.
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“They were so frustrated they were almost in tears,” he said of federal officials, who were trying to make the registration system work.
Opponents of registration say the system is too cumbersome and time consuming. Federal officials at gun shows in Brandon, Man., and Edmonton spent hours on the phone with other officials trying to make the system work.
In the end, opponents say, some officials were telling people to take their new guns home and register them by mail, something that is illegal.
“I can’t see anything other than the registration system collapsing,” said Greg Illerbrun of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, an organization opposed to gun registration.
Reform MP Garry Breitkreuz said his office has received more than 100 phone calls on some days from gun buyers unable to register firearms because of problems with the new system. Sometimes the computer system hasn’t worked. Sometimes people who phone into the registration centre are put on hold for too long.
Jean Valin of the Canadian Firearms Centre admits the registration system got off to a “rough start.” Two gun shows at which problems occurred happened within the first few days of the registry operating, and were really just “growing pains,” he said.
Gun registration opponents also say it will be “physically impossible” to register all guns. They say the registration system can’t keep up with registering newly purchased guns, let alone register the estimated seven to 20 million firearms already owned in Canada.
But Valin said gun shop owners have made the situation worse by refusing to co-operate. He said the CFC asked gun shop owners to mail in basic information about their inventories, including serial numbers and descriptions of guns, so when someone bought a gun, they would only have to register the new owner, rather than all the details about the gun.
Contribute to problem
But most dealers, according to Valin, have refused to supply the information. That has complicated each new registration, he said.
“What dealers are experiencing is partly their own fault,” said Valin.
Some gun groups, such as the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, urge their members not to register their weapons until they have to, by 2003.
The Law Abiding Unregistered Firearms Owners Association is telling gun owners not to register their firearms even after the law takes effect in 2003, to starve the system with non-compliance.
Valin said trying to undermine the system hurts gun owners.
The gun registry officially got under way in December. All people who buy guns must register each gun they acquire. Until now, gun owners were required to license themselves as someone allowed to buy guns. Gun owners who did not buy guns did not need to register.
By 2001 all gun owners will have to get a licence. By 2003 all guns, no matter how long they’ve been owned, must be registered.
A police check is conducted with every new gun registration. This has already netted results that Valin said proves the registration system helps keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
In the first month, seven percent of people who applied to register guns were denied because the checks revealed they were banned from owning guns. Some were convicted criminals.
“We won’t make an apology for being cautious when we’re catching that many people,” he said. Illerbrun said groups like his haven’t given up the fight to get rid of the gun registration system now that it’s in place.
“Up to December 1st (the gun law) was just talk. Now they’re having to do it. The fun is just beginning. It’s going to be a disaster.”
