RE: Unregistered
<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote<font size=1 face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Make it very difficult or impossible to obtain handguns and other weapons designed solely for killing people. Countries that have done this (basically every developed country in the world except the USA) have extremely low rates of firearm deaths <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica' size=2 id=quote>
The legal acquisition of handguns was banned in Britain after the murder in Scotland of school children. Now England boasts one of the highest firearm crime rates of westernized countries (even higher than the US). An article in the news recently stated that handguns are almost a fashion statement in London, and the out right ban on them has done absolutely nothing to stem the tide of illegal imports or murders. In fact the murder rate has increased.
The general public either doesn't realize, or chooses to ignore, the fact that handguns have been registered since 1934. Yet even with this new "wonder" system I've had to re-register my revolver twice since the Rock Initiative, same address, same owner, owned it for 20 years.
All this miss-spent money should have gone into providing better training courses for people who wished to aquire firearms and for law enforcement efforts to stop the illegal importation of handguns. More lives would be saved by instituting an educational program in schools-similar to the counter-attack/drunk driving program- where survivers, doctors, criminals could tell their tales on how much fun being shot is, etc, than this bureaucratic excercise of having us write down how many guns we own.
But I guess it's easier to have law abiding people be even more law abiding than to actually deal with the root of the problem.
Some one suggested that the government would eventually make hunting a primitive weapons hobby. If Rock had his way, hunting would go the way of firearms- gone completely. It is still to clear in my mind the statement he made about "how nice it would be if Canada was a non-hunting country". How many his political supporters subscribe to this philosophy as well?
RC